Scale AI, a startup specializing in providing high-quality data for training AI systems, is joining a large-scale AI competition dominated by technology. Bloomberg reported on June 8 that Meta is investing more than $10 billion with a company in San Francisco, a deal that may be one of the largest private company financing ever. If finalized, it will also significantly increase the wealth of young founders of scale AI, especially CEO Alexandr Wang.
Meta is reportedly recruiting Wang to lead a new in-house research lab as part of a deal that has not yet been officially announced. The team will focus on advanced AI technologies such as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and plans to integrate AGI into products such as Meta AI and Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses. The lab is expected to employ approximately 50 experts in the field.
META and SCALE AI did not respond to observers’ requests for comment.
Meta’s partnership with Scale AI coincides with the company’s plan to double AI in 2025 and has competed in AGI’s full-scale competition with other Silicon Valley giants. META plans to invest up to $72 billion in AI next year, thus greatly expanding its chip inventory, data center capacity and products for AI products. “It will be intense,” Zuckerberg said in January, describing 2025 as a key year for “setting a course for the future.”
In recent months, Wang has become an increasingly important figure in Washington as the United States strives to maintain leadership in AI, surpassing warnings about the rise of China’s AIR DeepSeek, who directly appealed to the Trump administration to AI Investments and testified in Congress in April that the administration urged the government to establish a national AI data reserve.
Wang’s focus on federal strategy stems from his upbringing in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where he was raised by two weapon physicists. After taking office at Tech Ventures Addepar and Quora, Wang (Mark Zuckerberg) left college like Mark Zuckerberg and founded his own company. In 2016, he co-founded AI with another former Quora worker, Lucy Guo, who left the company in 2018.
Knowledge about proportional AI and Alexandr Wang
Scale AI recruits a team of large human contractors around the world to mark text, image and video data used to fine-tune AI systems. The company initially focused on self-driving cars before spinning with the generative model. Contributors of AI at about 9,000 locations worldwide face criticism of labor practice, including allegations of wage theft and misclassification of workers. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Labor conducted a nearly one year investigation into its employee practices.
As AI companies work hard to find high-quality data sources for their increasingly complex models, Scale AI has shifted its focus to expert contributors such as doctors, lawyers and doctoral masters to provide more professional data. Its customers include major players such as OpenAI, Uber and government agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Expanding AI and the Department of Defense’s work includes developing an evaluation framework for AI systems and integrating AI agents into military and operational plans.
Outside Washington, Wang maintains close ties with influential figures in Silicon Valley. He has been a friend of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for years, hanging out with him during the Covid-19 pandemic and launched Scale AI through Altman-led startup accelerator Y Combinator (Y Combinator).
Openai and Meta, as well as other investors such as Nvidia and Amazon, are backing Sabor AI in the 2024 round of funding, which valuates the startup by nearly $14 billion. AI reportedly earns $870 million in 2024, and is expected to exceed $2 billion this year.
The partnership with Scale AI will position Meta with large tech competitors that have taken similar actions. For example, Microsoft has invested $13 billion in OpenAI, while Amazon and Google have invested billions of dollars in AI startup humans.
