Meta is sinking $15 billion into AI data-labeling startup Scale AI, aiming to grab a 49% stake and hire its co-founder and top researchers. The deal could be announced as soon as Wednesday, valuing Scale AI at around $28 billion—doubling its valuation for the second year running.
Meta plans to use Scale AI’s talent to build a “superintelligence” lab to outpace rivals like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The move follows underwhelming reviews of Meta’s latest large language model, Llama 4, which lagged behind competitors on reasoning and coding tests.
Scale AI focuses on manual data labeling, crucial for training advanced AI models. Its 28-year-old co-founder Alexandr Wang, known more for promotion than management, is set to join Meta’s AI lab. Meanwhile, chief strategy officer Jason Droege is expected to become CEO amid uncertainty for the rest of the startup’s staff. 
Alexandr Wang has forged relationships with Silicon Valley’s biggest investors and technologists, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and has positioned Scale AI to serve companies developing autonomous vehicles and more recently those building generative AI models.
But his talents lie in promoting the company rather than managing its staff or furthering AI research, according to multiple people who have worked with him.
Meta is under pressure from rivals rolling out powerful step-by-step “reasoning” AI models and cost-effective open source competitors from China like DeepSeek. The company’s AI efforts have been rocky, with reorganizations and the departure of AI VP Joelle Pineau earlier this year.
Scale AI has been trying to diversify beyond data-labeling, focusing on custom enterprise apps and government bids. The potential Meta acquisition clouds Wang’s recent public IPO ambitions.
Big Tech is hungry for AI talent and tech: Microsoft paid $650 million last year for Inflection’s leadership and tech licenses. Google forked out $2.7 billion for a deal with Character AI. These deals partly skirt regulatory scrutiny, though antitrust probes continue.
Neither Meta nor Scale AI has commented on the prospective deal.
