Meta invests $14.3 billion in AI firm Scale and recruits its CEO for ’superintelligence’ team

Meta is making a $14.3 billion investment in artificial intelligence company Scale.

Meta is making a $14.3 billion investment in artificial intelligence company Scale and recruiting its CEO Alexandr Wang to join a team developing “superintelligence” at the tech giant.

The deal announced Thursday reflects a push by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to revive AI efforts at the parent company of Facebook and Instagram as it faces tough competition from rivals such as Google and OpenAI.

Meta announced what it called a “strategic partnership and investment” with Scale late Thursday. Scale said the $14.3 billion investment puts its market value at over $29 billion.

Scale said it will remain an independent company but the agreement will “substantially expand Scale and Meta’s commercial relationship.” Meta will hold a 49% stake in the startup.

Wang, though leaving for Meta with a small group of other Scale employees, will remain on Scale’s board of directors. Replacing him is a new interim Scale CEO Jason Droege, who was previously the company’s chief strategy officer and had past executive roles at Uber Eats and Axon.

Zuckerberg's increasing focus on the abstract idea of “superintelligence” — which rival companies call artificial general intelligence, or AGI — is the latest pivot for a tech leader who in 2021 went all-in on the idea of the metaverse, changing the company's name and investing billions into advancing virtual reality and related technology.

It won't be the first time since ChatGPT's 2022 debut sparked an AI arms race that a big tech company has gobbled up talent and products at innovative AI startups without formally acquiring them. Microsoft hired key staff from startup Inflection AI, including co-founder and CEO Mustafa Suleyman, who now runs Microsoft's AI division.