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Facing growing frustration over Meta’s lagging AI progress, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making his boldest move yet, backing one of the AI industry’s top minds.
Meta is about to invest $14–15 billion in Scale AI. The startup was last valued at $14 billion. Scale AI is known for its strength in data labeling. It also provides infrastructure for generative AI models.
This deal, poised to become Meta’s largest external investment ever, will reportedly give the company a 49% stake in Scale AI. Importantly, the investment is structured to avoid a full acquisition, likely a tactical decision as Meta navigates ongoing antitrust scrutiny from U.S. regulators.
At the heart of this deal is Scale AI’s CEO, Alexandr Wang. He’s a dynamic founder and an MIT dropout. Wang is known as a “wartime CEO.” He’s not just offering Scale AI’s services. He’s also joining Meta to co-lead a new AI research lab. Additionally, around 50 others will join him, reports say.
Zuckerberg is personally betting on Wang to revive Meta’s AI push. This comes after a lukewarm response to its Llama 4 models. Meta had promised a larger version called “Behemoth.” But its launch was delayed. There were concerns about how it compared to OpenAI and China’s DeepSeek.
Learning from Rivals
Meta’s strategy follows a trend set by other tech giants. Microsoft invested at least $13 billion in OpenAI.
Amazon poured $8 billion into Anthropic. Google contributed over $3 billion to Anthropic as well. These companies are backing AI startups instead of buying them outright.
By backing Scale AI, Meta is not only strengthening its own foundation but also inheriting valuable intelligence. As SuperAnnotate CEO Vahan Petrosyan pointed out, Scale has “probably covered 70% of all the models that are built,” and now Meta stands to benefit from this deep insight into competitors’ architectures and data pipelines.
Founded in 2016, Scale AI has evolved into a critical infrastructure partner for OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta. In 2024, Scale AI signed one of San Francisco’s biggest real estate deals. It took over 180,000 square feet, once occupied by Airbnb. The company also advanced in the defense sector. It worked with Meta on “Defense Llama“—a custom AI model for U.S. military use.
The company’s revenue is expected to double to $2 billion by 2025, and it’s currently preparing a $25 billion tender offer for early investors and employees.
What’s Next for Meta?
Zuckerberg’s choice to empower an outsider like Wang, rather than a loyalist from within, reflects both urgency and strategic recalibration. After internal reshuffling within Meta’s GenAI unit, and a declining role for its long-running FAIR division, the company is aiming to fast-track progress toward artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Wang has made it clear he sees the AI race as more than just commercial. In his words:
“We need to unleash U.S. energy to enable this AI boom. The United States is going to need a huge amount of computational capacity, a huge amount of infrastructure.”
With global AI leadership at stake, Meta is placing its trust and billions of dollars in a rising star to help steer the future.
