Meta Reportedly Eyes $10B+ Investment in Scale AI

Alexandr Wang

Alexandr Wang

In what could be one of the largest AI-related deals of the year, Meta Platforms is reportedly in advanced talks to invest over $10 billion in artificial intelligence data infrastructure company Scale AI, according to a Bloomberg report published on Sunday. While final terms are still being hammered out, the potential size of the investment signals how aggressively Big Tech is betting on AI infrastructure as the next digital gold rush.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg notes that the deal is still in flux and could shift in scope or valuation before it’s finalized. Both companies have declined to comment on the report so far — Meta has yet to respond to inquiries, while Scale AI declined to make any public statements.

Who is Scale AI?

For those less familiar with the startup, Scale AI was founded in 2016 and quickly became a key player in the fast-evolving world of AI data services. Its core business centers on data labeling — the process of tagging and categorizing vast amounts of raw data, a critical step in training machine learning models to recognize images, understand language, and make decisions.

But Scale AI isn’t just any AI data company. It’s already earned the backing of some of the biggest names in the industry, including Nvidia, Amazon, and, notably, Meta itself. The company was last valued at nearly $14 billion, and it runs a collaborative platform where AI researchers from more than 9,000 cities and towns worldwide contribute and exchange insights on AI systems.

This network effect has made Scale AI not only a service provider but also a community hub for AI development — something that may have caught Meta’s eye as it looks to deepen its AI capabilities across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and its developing metaverse initiatives.

Why Would Meta Make Such a Massive Move?

While the size of the potential investment raised eyebrows across Silicon Valley, it aligns with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s AI-first strategy. In recent years, Meta has increasingly positioned itself as a leader in AI development, focusing on areas like content recommendation, AI-generated media, large language models (LLMs), and immersive AI-powered virtual environments.

The race for AI dominance has also turned into a strategic arms race among tech titans. Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI, Amazon’s expanding AI cloud services, and Google DeepMind’s ongoing breakthroughs have forced Meta to double down on its AI infrastructure and research capabilities. A significant stake in Scale AI would give Meta more influence over the AI data pipeline — from labeling and model training to system evaluation — strengthening its AI backbone while giving it a privileged window into what’s coming next in the AI world.

A Growing AI Infrastructure Boom

This potential megadeal also highlights a broader trend in tech investing: AI infrastructure is becoming one of the hottest verticals for venture funding and corporate investment. Beyond just training models, AI requires vast, meticulously labeled datasets, efficient data pipelines, and robust model evaluation frameworks — all services that companies like Scale AI provide.

According to CB Insights, AI infrastructure startups attracted over $20 billion in funding in 2023 alone, and that figure is expected to grow this year as more companies recognize the need to build reliable, scalable AI systems.

Scale AI’s Recent Moves

Interestingly, Scale AI has been busy beyond the rumored Meta talks. In the past year, the company expanded its work with the U.S. Department of Defense, providing AI infrastructure services for national security applications. It also launched Scale Spellbook, a platform for building and testing large language models tailored for enterprise clients — a space Meta is also increasingly active in.

While details of the deal remain unconfirmed, if Meta proceeds with a $10 billion+ investment in Scale AI, it would mark one of the boldest AI infrastructure moves by a Big Tech company this year. It signals that AI’s future won’t just be about smarter models, but also about owning the data and infrastructure that makes those models possible.

Fun fact

Scale AI’s CEO, Alexandr Wang, became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire in 2022 at just 25 years old — a testament to the growing economic power of AI infrastructure and its architects. We’ll be watching closely as this story develops.