Meta Invests $14.3 Bln Into Scale AI, Taps In CEO Alexandr Wang To Lead "Superintelligence" Push

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(RTTNews) - Meta Platforms has agreed to invest $14.3 billion for a 49 percent, non-voting stake in data-labeling pioneer Scale AI implying a $29 billion valuation and will recruit its 28-year-old co-founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, to spearhead a new "superintelligence" division.

Under the deal, Scale's chief strategy officer, Jason Droege, will step in as interim CEO, and a small contingent of Scale employees will transition to Meta alongside Wang. Meta said the partnership will deepen collaboration on the vast, accurately annotated datasets critical to training advanced AI models.

Wang, who dropped out of MIT to launch Scale in 2016, rapidly built the company into a leading provider of human-validated training data for applications ranging from autonomous vehicles to OpenAI's ChatGPT. His move to Meta—widely interpreted as a bid by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to inject fresh leadership into the company's AI efforts marks a shift from Meta's open-source heritage to a more commercially driven approach.

While the scale of Meta's investment underscores its commitment to closing the gap with rivals like Google and OpenAI, some of Scale's existing clients may balk at the optics of Meta owning nearly half the startup. Meta has pledged it will not gain board seats or privileged access to Scale's customer data. Early backers such as Accel and Index Ventures will be able to liquidate half their holdings, securing a lucrative exit.

The transaction Meta's second-largest ever after its WhatsApp acquisition highlights the tech titan's determination to secure top AI talent and infrastructure as it races toward ever more capable, "superintelligent" systems.