The magnitude of Meta’s investment in Scale may seem like command of the AI race, but the company’s playing catchup
Mark Zuckerberg announced in April that the company would make huge capital expenditures in the coming year to keep up in the race to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence. He made good on that promise last week with a $15bn “AI superintelligence” team that would feature reported nine-figure salaries and a 49% investment in Scale AI. Meta also hired Scale’s 28-year-old founder, Alexandr Wang, a former roommate of OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
Before Meta’s investment, Scale counted most of the major players in AI among its clients, and some of them were less than thrilled with the development. Bloomberg puts it succinctly: Scale AI’s Wang Brings to Meta Knowledge of What Everyone Else is Doing. Google, Scale’s largest customer, got scared. The tech giant told the startup that their working relationship would end in response to the deal, Reuters reported on Friday.
My colleague Robert Booth has more:
One Silicon Valley analyst described the announcement as the action of “a wartime CEO”.
