Meta Platforms is reportedly in advanced talks to invest over $10 billion in Scale AI, a leading startup specialising in data labelling services essential for machine learning.
This potential deal, announced on Sunday, would mark Meta’s largest external investment in artificial intelligence and one of the biggest private funding rounds ever in the AI sector.
Scale AI’s rapid growth and industry role
Founded in 2016 by CEO Alexandr Wang, Scale AI has become a critical player in the AI ecosystem by providing high-quality data labelling, which is the foundation for training machine learning models.
The firm expects to quadruple its 2024 revenue of approximately $870 million to $2 billion in 2025. Scale AI was valued at approximately $13.8 billion after a $1 billion funding round in 2024, which included participation from Meta, Amazon, and Nvidia.
Scale AI’s clients include major tech companies like Microsoft and OpenAI, underscoring its importance in the generative AI boom.
The company also collaborated with Meta on Defense Llama, a large language model built on Meta’s Llama 3 architecture, designed for U.S. national security applications. This collaboration highlights the strategic value Scale AI holds beyond commercial AI development.
Meta’s strategic shift in AI investment
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI a central focus, announcing plans to invest up to $65 billion in AI-related projects throughout 2025. Traditionally, Meta has relied heavily on internal AI research and open-source models.
However, this potential $10 billion investment in Scale AI signals a strategic pivot toward significant external funding, aligning Meta with other tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon, which have made large investments in AI startups such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
If finalised, this deal would strengthen Scale AI’s position and demonstrate Meta’s intensified commitment to accelerating AI innovation across multiple sectors, including national security.
The move could reshape the competitive dynamics of the AI industry by bringing more advanced AI capabilities into Meta’s ecosystem and expanding its influence in AI technology development.
Meta’s investment strategy follows a trend among prominent technology companies to invest in potential AI startups to gain access to cutting-edge techniques and experience.
This approach complements Meta’s existing AI initiatives, including its open-source language model Llama and AI-powered chatbots serving over a billion users on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
This major investment discussion, underscores the growing importance of AI startups like Scale AI in the global technology race and Meta’s readiness to back transformative AI ventures with unprecedented financial commitments.