Meta is reportedly on the verge of making a significant investment in Scale AI, a startup that specializes in data labeling to facilitate the expansion of AI models. According to Bloomberg, the tech giant is in advanced talks to invest up to $10 billion in the company, with which it already collaborates as part of its broader AI development efforts.
Founded in 2016, Scale AI has established itself as a key provider of high-quality, labeled data that is crucial for training AI systems. The company’s expertise lies in accurately labeling and annotating data sources, thereby making sense of complex data inputs and significantly improving the AI training process. Research has shown that such precise data labeling can substantially reduce AI training time by providing AI companies with more valuable data, thus reducing their manual workload.
Scale AI’s services are already being utilized by several major AI projects, including those of OpenAI and Meta. The startup’s involvement has been instrumental in assisting these companies with their current AI training processes. Notably, Meta had previously invested $1 billion in Scale AI during its Series F funding round. An expanded partnership between Meta and Scale AI could potentially give Meta a significant edge in the AI landscape by granting it exclusive access to Scale’s evolving data classification tools. This, in turn, could lead to significant improvements in Meta’s AI models.
This development comes as Meta continues to bolster its data processing capabilities, including the development of a 2-gigawatt data center and other major infrastructure projects. The company currently possesses around 350,000 Nvidia H100 chips, which are instrumental in powering its AI projects – a number that surpasses the holdings of both OpenAI and xAI, which each have approximately 300,000 H100 chips. Furthermore, Meta is also working on developing its own hardware to support expanded AI development.
By investing heavily in Scale AI and enhancing its infrastructure, Meta is positioning itself to become a leader in the global AI race. This strategic move is likely to have far-reaching implications for its various platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, as well as its broader AI tools, particularly in VR environments and wearable technology.
