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Meta Platforms is in advanced discussions to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Scale AI, a leading data infrastructure provider for artificial intelligence, according to people familiar with the matter. The financing, which could exceed $10 billion, would mark one of the largest private tech funding deals in history and signal a major shift in Meta’s AI investment strategy.
While terms are not yet finalized and could still change, the deal underscores the escalating competition among Big Tech companies to dominate the AI landscape. Meta and Scale have declined to comment on the potential investment.
Scale AI, whose clients include industry heavyweights such as Microsoft and OpenAI, has become a pivotal player in the AI ecosystem by supplying high-quality, human-labeled datasets essential for training advanced machine learning models. As the generative AI boom continues, Scale’s role has grown significantly, with the company valued at $14 billion in a 2024 funding round that included Meta and Microsoft. Earlier this year, reports surfaced of a possible tender offer that could push Scale’s valuation to $25 billion.
For Meta, this would be its most significant external AI investment to date. Historically, the social media giant has leaned heavily on its in-house AI research and an open-source approach to development. In contrast, rivals like Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet have funneled billions into external AI ventures—most notably Microsoft’s more than $13 billion commitment to OpenAI and Amazon and Alphabet’s stakes in Anthropic.
Those investments have often included large credits for cloud computing services—an area where Meta lags, as it lacks a public cloud platform. It remains unclear whether Meta’s potential deal with Scale would involve compute credits, equity, or another structure entirely.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly emphasized that AI is now Meta’s top priority. In January, he announced plans to invest as much as $65 billion in AI-related initiatives in 2025. A significant stake in Scale would align with that ambition and potentially accelerate Meta’s ability to compete in large-scale AI training, deployment, and infrastructure.
As competition intensifies, Meta’s move could serve not only to enhance its AI capabilities but also to ensure access to the scarce, high-quality training data that underpins the next generation of artificial intelligence
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