Meta plans to invest about $15bn in data-labelling start-up Scale AI and hire the group’s co-founder and top researchers, in one of the biggest deals of its kind as the Big Tech company seeks to catch up with rivals.
The deal, which could be announced as soon as Wednesday, would give Meta a 49 per cent stake in Scale AI and value the start-up at roughly $28bn, according to people with knowledge of the matter. It would mark the second consecutive year that Scale AI has doubled its valuation.
The investment in Scale AI and attempt to poach its top talent was part of Meta’s plan to build a “superintelligence” lab that would outperform OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, which are also developing models they claim will exceed human intelligence, according to one of the people.