Meta invests $14B in Scale AI to fuel AGI breakthrough
13 Jun 2025

Meta has made a massive investment of $14.3 billion in Scale AI, acquring a 49% stake in the leading data labeling start-up.

The deal values the company at over $29 billion, according to reports.

As part of the agreement, Alexandr Wang, CEO and co-founder of Scale AI, will join Meta's new "superintelligence" unit focused on achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI).

'Superintelligence' unit to be led by Wang
Leadership change

Along with Wang, Jason Droege, the Chief Strategy Officer at Scale AI, will take over as the interim CEO of the company.

This strategic move by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg comes as a bid to revamp Meta's AI efforts with a business leader rather than research scientists who usually lead competing labs.

The deal is also Meta's second-largest ever after its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp.

Deal gives Zuckerberg edge over rivals
Competitive edge

The deal also gives Zuckerberg a competitive edge as many labs have hired Scale for data services.

This could give him an insight into his rivals' data strategies, which is crucial for building modern AI models.

Scale was last valued at nearly $14 billion in May 2024 when it raised $1 billion from investors including tech giants NVIDIA, Amazon, and Meta itself.

Scale AI's role in the tech ecosystem
Data provision

Founded in 2016, Scale AI plays a crucial role in providing large volumes of accurately labeled data. This is essential for training advanced tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT.

The company has set up subsidiary platforms such as Remotasks and Outlier to hire and manage gig-workers who manually label the data.

Wang has led the company to offer data labeling services across various tech sectors from autonomous vehicles years ago to generative AI today.