Meta is reportedly investing almost $15 billion dollars within the information labeling agency Scale AI and taking a 49% stake within the startup, whereas additionally bringing on CEO Alexandr Wang to assist lead a brand new “superintelligence” lab throughout the firm.
The deal is harking back to Meta’s earlier massive and dangerous bets, similar to its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp and its $1 billion Instagram purchase. On the time these mergers closed, many individuals recommended Meta had grossly overpaid for the platforms — and right this moment’s discourse isn’t any completely different. There’s no scarcity of buyers and founders who have been left scratching their heads this weekend over Meta’s newest tie-up.
Ultimately, WhatsApp and Instagram grew to become an integral a part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s empire. The query is whether or not the Scale AI deal will equally work in Meta’s favor, proving Zuckerberg’s prescient technique but once more, or whether or not the corporate is greedy at straws in a misguided effort to catch as much as rivals like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
On this case, Meta isn’t betting on an rising social media app, however on the info used to coach high AI fashions. For the final a number of years, main AI labs similar to OpenAI have relied on Scale AI to supply and label information that’s used to coach fashions. In current months, Scale AI and its information annotation opponents have began hiring extremely expert folks, similar to PhD scientists and senior software program engineers, to generate high-quality information for frontier AI labs.
It could profit Meta to have a detailed relationship with an information supplier like Scale. Meta’s leaders have complained a few lack of innovation round information within the firm’s main AI groups, in response to an individual accustomed to the matter.
Earlier this yr, Meta’s GenAI unit launched Llama 4, a household of AI fashions that did not match the capabilities of Chinese language AI lab DeepSeek’s fashions, and which was broadly seen as a disappointment. Not serving to issues, Meta is making an attempt to fight an attrition downside. In response to information compiled by SignalFire, Meta lost 4.3% of its top talent to AI labs in 2024.
Meta isn’t simply betting on Scale AI to reignite its AI efforts, but additionally on Wang to guide the aforementioned new superintelligence staff. The 28-year-old CEO has confirmed himself to be a powerful startup founder — he’s recognized round Silicon Valley to be formidable, an excellent salesman, and really well-connected. Over the previous few months, Wang has been meeting with world leaders to debate AI’s influence on society.
Wang hasn’t led an AI lab of this type earlier than, nevertheless, and he doesn’t have the identical AI analysis background that many different AI lab leaders do, like Protected Superintelligence’s Ilya Sutskever or Mistral’s Arthur Mensch. That’s maybe why Meta can be mentioned to be recruiting high-profile expertise like DeepMind’s Jack Rae to spherical out its new AI analysis group.
The post-acquisition destiny of Scale AI the corporate is a bit murky. The position of real-world information in AI mannequin coaching is altering — some AI labs have introduced information assortment efforts in-house, whereas others have elevated their reliance on artificial (i.e. AI-generated) information. In April, The Info reported that Scale AI had missed some of its revenue targets.
In response to Anyscale co-founder Robert Nishihara, a number of frontier AI labs are exploring novel methods to leverage and optimize information, lots of that are fairly compute-intensive.
“Information is a transferring goal,” Nishihara advised TechCrunch in an interview. “It’s not only a finite effort to catch up — it’s a must to innovate.”
It’s attainable that Meta and Wang’s relationship may scare off different AI labs which have historically labored with Scale AI. In that case, this deal could possibly be a boon for Scale AI’s opponents, similar to Turing, Surge AI, and even nonconventional information suppliers such because the lately launched LM Area.
Turing CEO Jonathan Siddharth advised TechCrunch by way of electronic mail that he’s obtained elevated curiosity from clients in mild of the rumors round Meta’s cope with Scale AI.
“I feel there might be some purchasers who will choose to work with a accomplice that’s extra impartial,” he mentioned.
Solely time will inform how Meta’s funding will pan out for its AI efforts, however the firm has important floor to make up. In the meantime, the competitors isn’t slowing down. OpenAI is gearing up for the discharge of its subsequent flagship mannequin, GPT-5, in addition to its first overtly out there mannequin in years — a mannequin that’ll compete with Meta’s present and future Llama releases.