Meta Platforms (hereinafter Meta), the parent company of Facebook, is reported to have invested $14.3 billion (approximately 19.6 trillion won) in the artificial intelligence (AI) startup Scale AI and recruited its founder and CEO, Alexander Wang.
According to Bloomberg News on the 13th, Meta has decided to invest $14.3 billion to acquire 49% of Scale AI's equity. However, it is reported that this equity consists of non-voting shares. Instead, Meta has recruited CEO Wang to lead the super-intelligence development team. Several employees from Scale AI are also expected to join Meta soon.
Bloomberg News assessed that Meta is trying to recover from its lagging position in AI development with this large-scale investment. Scale AI stated in a blog post that this transaction values the company at over $29 billion. CEO Wang informed employees of his move to Meta through a memo.
He said through X, "As you may have seen in recent news, transactions like this often come at a cost," adding, "This time, the cost is my departure." He further noted, "Being able to serve as the CEO of Scale AI was the greatest joy of my life."
Meta has been preparing to establish a research institute dedicated to superintelligence AI research beyond human-level artificial general intelligence (AGI). To this end, it has pursued recruitment by offering significant sums to dozens of researchers from major competitors such as OpenAI and Google, and some have reportedly agreed to join.
A Meta official stated, "Meta has finalized the strategic partnership and investment with Scale AI," adding, "Through this agreement, we will deepen our collaborative efforts in data production for AI models." He further mentioned, "Alexander Wang is expected to join Meta to participate in superintelligence research and development, and detailed information about additional talents joining the team in the coming weeks will be disclosed."
Scale AI is an AI startup founded in 2016 by 28-year-old Chinese American Alexander Wang. It develops technology for refining the data needed for AI learning. It not only classifies given data but also selects cases where the model has made incorrect predictions to re-refine and reinforce that data.
Meta has faced difficulties related to conflicts among its internal executives, employee departures, and failures in launching several products regarding AI development. It entered the competition with its AI chatbot based on the large language model (LLM) 'Llama,' but the recent release of 'Llama 4' has been delayed and did not receive a strong response. It is reported that most of the key researchers who led the AI project 'Llama' have left the company.
CEO Wang is expected to retain his directorship at Scale AI even after moving to Meta. Scale AI has promoted Jason Droge, its chief strategy officer (CSO), to CEO. Droge previously served as a vice president at Uber.