Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram, is in high-level consultations to invest billions of dollars in Scale AI, a startup focusing on the data used by artificial intelligence companies, according to two people with knowledge of the issue.
Potential investments are a sign that large tech companies are interested in AI-focused startups amid ardent contests to become technology leaders. If an investment occurs, it is an outlier for the meta and usually does not invest in external companies.
Meta and Scale declined to comment. Bloomberg reported earlier in consultations.
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has been pushed hard by AI in recent years. Since Openai released ChatGpt Chatbot in late 2022, Zuckerberg has been leaning on incorporating AI into Meta's products, including smart glasses and the recently released app, Meta AI.
Founded in San Francisco in 2016 by Alexandre Wang and Lucy Guo, Scale AI labeled and “cleaned” information to facilitate training in AI systems, sifted through vast amounts of data, and built business with the military of contract workers. Scale sells services to companies such as Microsoft, Cohere, Etsy, and Openai.
Scale AI has raised over $1 billion from a mix of investors, including the Venture Capital Firms Index Ventures and the Founders Fund.
Recently, Scale AI has been building business in the business and public sector, dispatching consultants and engineers to work with businesses and governments to help build programs that use AI.
In recent years, Meta has encouraged programmers to build AI apps across the private and public sectors using open source AI models that are freely available.
In November, META announced that it would enable U.S. government agencies and contractors working on national security to use AI models that are working on national security, a transition from previous policies. The company worked with defense contractors Booz Allen and Lockheed Martin on the initiative, along with startups, including Scale.
