Meta Takes 49% Scale AI Stake for $14.3 Billion, Launches New AI Lab

Meta Platforms has completed a deal to acquire a 49% non-voting stake in San-Francisco-based Scale AI for about $14.3 billion, valuing the data-labeling specialist at roughly $29 billion. A separate supply agreement will see Meta purchase at least $450 million a year in services from Scale for five years, according to people familiar with the terms. The transaction is Meta’s second-largest outlay after its 2014 WhatsApp purchase and underscores chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg’s push to close the gap with rivals in large-scale artificial-intelligence systems.

Scale founder Alexandr Wang, 28, is leaving the start-up’s top job to become Meta’s chief AI officer and, together with former GitHub chief executive Nat Friedman, will run a new unit called Meta Superintelligence Labs. Zuckerberg told employees in an internal memo that the reorganised group will bring together the company’s foundational-model, product and FAIR research teams to build systems that perform tasks as well as or better than humans.

The investment has been paired with an aggressive talent drive. Over the past fortnight Meta has hired at least eight senior researchers from OpenAI, including three scientists who helped establish the rival’s Zurich office and four engineers involved in GPT-4-series models. WIRED reported that the social-media company has dangled packages worth as much as $300 million over four years, with first-year compensation topping $100 million in some cases.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman criticised Meta’s tactics in a memo to staff, while the start-up’s research chief Mark Chen said the company is “recalibrating” pay to retain key employees. Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth countered that only a small number of leadership roles command such premiums.