Meta Eyes $10B Scale AI Investment Deal

Tech Giant in Talks for Record-Breaking AI Investment

Meta is reportedly negotiating what could become its largest-ever external AI investment – a potential $10+ billion deal with data annotation powerhouse Scale AI, according to Bloomberg. This strategic move aligns with Meta’s aggressive push into artificial intelligence infrastructure and model development.

Scale AI’s Critical Role in AI Development

The San Francisco-based company provides essential data labeling services that power AI training for major tech players including Microsoft and OpenAI. Scale AI’s workforce of contractors annotates massive datasets – a crucial but often overlooked component of machine learning pipelines.

Recent financials demonstrate Scale AI’s rapid growth:

• $870 million revenue in 2024
• Projected $2 billion revenue for 2025

Regulatory Context and Existing Partnership

The potential deal comes shortly after the Department of Labor closed its investigation into Scale AI’s labor practices. Meta previously participated in Scale AI’s $1 billion Series F round last year, which valued the company at $13.8 billion.

Notably, Scale AI has already built defense-focused AI applications using Meta’s technology, including Defense Llama – a military-optimized large language model developed atop Meta’s Llama 3 framework.

Strategic Implications for the AI Industry

This massive potential investment signals Meta’s commitment to controlling more of the AI value chain, from foundational infrastructure to end-user applications. For Scale AI, the deal would provide substantial capital to expand its data operations and potentially develop new AI training technologies.

Should this deal materialize, it would rank among the largest private company funding events in tech history, further accelerating the AI arms race among Silicon Valley giants.