The quest for the meta that controls the AI world -

Facebook Parent Meta (Meta) has spent billions of dollars on winning a lead in AI races, building the data centers needed to accelerate the development and capabilities of leading high-end language models. And now the company is pouring billions into snatching top talent and technology to win a lead in the AI war.

In the latest employment coup, Meta poached three Openai (Opai.Pvt) researchers. Google Deepmind Allums Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai from their Zurich offices, The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday. Openai CEO Sam Altman claims that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has provided over $100 million to its employees to participate in the AI initiative.

Meanwhile, Meta reportedly is in discussions with Bag Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross and former Github CEO Nat Friedman with Bag Safe Superintelligence CEO for the planned superintelligence lab. According to CNBC, Zuckerberg initially focused on all safe emergency situations, but was shot down by co-founder Ilya Sutskever.

The move has led Meta to invest $14.3 billion in AI Startup Scale AI and hired CEO and co-founder Alexandr Wang. That's not all. Meta wanted to buy Prplexity AI (Peai.pvt) but was unable to establish any terms on the transaction.

“The Meta is doing this because they want to win AI races, period,” Forester analyst Mike Prucks told Yahoo Finance. “AI is everything now.”

All this follows Meta's decision to postpone the debut of the massive Llama 4 Behemoth AI model. The company will not launch a model until later this fall over concerns that it will not be a sufficient upgrade to its previous model, according to the Wall Street Journal.

File - Alexandr Wang, founder and CEO of Scale AI, will pos for photos at the company's office in San Francisco on May 15, 2023 (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) — Scale AI Founder and CEO Alexandr Wang will take a photo at the company's office in San Francisco on May 15, 2023 (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) ・ Associated Press

“I think this is two things [is] He spoke to Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, to Yahoo Finance. [it’s] Also, there's a sign that Zuckerberg isn't OK with that. ”

In the case of Meta, the goal is clear. Bring as much fresh talent as possible, moving forward with AI programs and leading with AI Wars.

Meta's efforts to dominate the AI world are different from Chief Freibal's Open, Google, Zai and more. Rather than shutting down the AI model, the company offers it as open source software that developers and companies can use on their own.

Meta imposes several restrictions on how users can leverage the model. For example, the company requires companies to request a license from META if their products have more than 700 million active users per month.

Anyway, the ultimate goal of Meta is to gain as many people as they are used to using and developing products through AI models. Why not request everyone who wants to access the software? Because Meta brings benefits every time a company changes its model and gives it more insight into how it can improve on the line.

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, Left and Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be on stage at Ramacon 2025, an AI developer conference held in Menlo Park, California on Tuesday, April 29th, 2025. ・ Associated Press

Meta is also less interested in selling access to models. The company primarily uses AI to enhance its advertising and content recommendation services, unlike Microsoft, for example (MSFT). It sells AI services such as productivity software packages.

Meta CFO Susan Li told investors in the company's latest revenue call that since introducing Llama to its recommended system late last year, the user time spent on threaded apps has increased by 4%.

Meta also leaned against AI models to provide intelligence in hardware products, including Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and other future AI-powered devices.

“The reason why Meta is making these moves is that they have a lot of money and if they can't build it on their own, they're in a good position to acquire the talent and abilities they need to jump the competition,” Plucks explained.

But meta isn't the only company that circulates AI startups in Silicon Valley. Apple is also reportedly considering bagging its own AI company as iPhone manufacturers are trying to improve the fate of their own AI.

Apple was due to release an AI-powered version of SIRI earlier this year, but as it is fighting the challenges of its own development, it has been pushing forward until the second half of this year.

To that end, according to Bloomberg, Apple is also discussing the purchase of Prplexity AI.

The confusing spokesman said the company has no knowledge of current or future M&A discussions, but added, “it's not surprising that the best OEMs in the world want to provide users with the best search and most accurate AI.”

Apple's rival Samsung is reportedly trying to add some confusion to its device.

In Meta's case, whether they can join the AI push and push the company into pole positions in the AI race and beg the right people from the right AI companies will all be it. If not, the social media giant can find himself falling even further, without going through a clear path.