Meta Platforms Inc. has acquired a 49% nonvoting stake in artificial intelligence infrastructure company Scale AI in a $14.3 billion strategic investment aimed at accelerating its artificial general intelligence (AGI) development and expanding its footprint in defense and enterprise AI applications.
The transaction, which marks one of Meta’s most aggressive external investments to date, includes the recruitment of Scale AI’s co-founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, who will join Meta’s newly formed “superintelligence” unit.
The unit is tasked with building next-generation AI models capable of matching or surpassing human cognitive abilities. Wang will continue to serve on Scale’s board but has relinquished day-to-day operational control, with Jason Droege appointed interim CEO.
Meta confirmed the deal Thursday, stating, “Meta has finalized our strategic partnership and investment in Scale AI. As part of this, we will deepen the work we do together producing data for AI models.”
The San Francisco-based Scale AI, which provides data labeling, curation, and infrastructure services to train AI systems, is a critical supplier to companies such as OpenAI and Meta. The new arrangement gives Meta direct access to Scale’s proprietary capabilities and positions the social media giant to enhance its large language model (LLM) pipeline and strengthen its AI training data strategy.
The deal values Scale AI at over $29 billion, including the latest capital injection, up from a prior valuation of $14 billion in 2023. Scale expects to generate approximately $2 billion in revenue this year, building on the $870 million reported for 2024, according to internal figures obtained by Bloomberg.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has identified AI as the company’s top strategic priority for 2025, allocating tens of billions of dollars to infrastructure, model development, and global recruitment. Following underwhelming responses to Meta’s Llama 4 model released in April, Zuckerberg has taken a direct role in AI talent acquisition, hosting researchers at his homes in California and restructuring office layouts to bring AI teams closer to executive leadership.
Industry analysts view the Scale AI investment as a strategic pivot toward the partnership model adopted by Microsoft with OpenAI and Amazon with Anthropic. Unlike direct acquisitions, these high-stakes partnerships allow Big Tech firms to bypass regulatory scrutiny while gaining access to emerging capabilities and leadership talent.
“An investment this aggressive implies not only that it’s important to the company, but that they need it,” said Shweta Khajuria, an analyst at Wolfe Research. “It’s clear Meta is going aggressively after this because they don’t want to be left behind.”
Meta’s investment is structured as a nonvoting equity stake, ensuring that Scale remains an independent company with operational autonomy. In a blog post, Scale emphasized its continued commitment to customer data privacy and enterprise-grade AI solutions.
“AI is one of the most revolutionary technologies of our time,” Wang said in a statement. “This partnership recognizes Scale’s accomplishments and underscores the critical role infrastructure plays in the future of intelligent systems.”
While Scale is not in the business of building large language models directly, its infrastructure has become essential to many model developers, providing labeled data, synthetic datasets, and model evaluation tools for AI deployments across commercial and governmental sectors.
The partnership may also deepen Meta’s ties with U.S. federal agencies and the Department of Defense, where Scale has an established presence.
The move comes as Meta intensifies efforts to close the gap with Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and OpenAI, all of whom have made significant advances in general-purpose AI. Meta’s investment strategy now reflects a broader shift in the competitive landscape, where access to top-tier infrastructure and talent is becoming as critical as model development itself.
With regulatory challenges still looming over Meta’s previous acquisitions, such as the FTC’s ongoing scrutiny of its dominance in social platforms, the Scale AI partnership avoids the risks of full acquisition while granting Meta a substantial strategic advantage in AI.
As the AI arms race continues, Meta’s multibillion-dollar bet on Scale AI signals a more aggressive posture to reclaim leadership in the next wave of artificial intelligence innovation.
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