Mark Zuckerberg is no longer willing to play catch-up in the artificial intelligence race. Frustrated by the slow progress of Meta AI — his company’s current advanced model — the Meta CEO is now betting big on the next stage of AI evolution: artificial general intelligence, or AGI.
According to reports from Bloomberg and The Information, Meta is close to finalizing its largest external investment to date: a $15 billion deal with Scale AI, one of the most influential companies in the AI industry. The agreement would give Meta a 49% stake in Scale AI and bring its CEO, Alexander Wang, directly into Meta's leadership team.
Still in his twenties, Wang has quickly become one of the most prominent voices in AI research. As a 19-year-old MIT student, he pinpointed what many had overlooked: the true obstacle to AI advancement isn’t processing power but the quality and preparation of training data.
AGI represents a far more ambitious leap than today’s typical AI models. Unlike current systems that are trained for specific tasks, AGI is designed to think, reason and adapt like a human — and potentially exceed human cognitive capabilities. The pursuit of AGI has become the latest battleground for tech giants like OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, all of whom are investing billions in its development.
The technology has the potential to revolutionize not only the AI sector but also entire industries, economies and job markets. Its multi-functional design would allow AGI to tackle complex, creative and adaptive challenges that today's narrow AI cannot handle.
Meta's partnership with Scale AI underscores just how urgent the company views its position in this race. According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta recently delayed the launch of its new flagship model, known internally as Behemoth, over concerns it couldn’t compete with rival offerings from OpenAI, Google and others.
To close the gap, Zuckerberg is personally building an elite team of approximately 50 top-tier AI experts, with Scale AI’s Wang expected to play a central role, reflecting Meta’s increasingly aggressive strategy to regain a leadership position in the field.
Unlike companies that produce consumer-facing AI models, Scale AI operates largely behind the scenes, focusing on the painstaking work of preparing, labeling and organizing massive datasets that power modern AI systems. This work has made the company one of the most crucial — if less visible — players in the global AI ecosystem. Wang’s close ties to industry leaders also provide Scale AI with rare insider visibility into cutting-edge developments.
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Scale AI employs hundreds of thousands worldwide to handle data annotation tasks: labeling vehicles and pedestrians in images to train self-driving cars, transcribing audio and grading AI model outputs to improve response accuracy. The company’s research arm also develops tools for evaluating model safety, performance and ethical alignment.
Beyond Meta, Scale AI counts companies like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and General Motors among its clients. It also collaborates with numerous government agencies on defense-related AI applications. In March, Scale AI signed a multimillion-dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to develop AI agents for the military and struck another deal with Qatar to supply automation tools for public services, healthcare and more. The company expects its revenue to double to $2 billion by 2025.
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Zuckerberg, on the left, wants to beat competition from AI titans
(Photo: AP/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Meanwhile, Meta’s rivals are following similar playbooks. Amazon recently invested over $8 billion in Anthropic, whose technology now powers Alexa Plus. Microsoft has funneled at least $13 billion into OpenAI.
Apple, for its part, has been more cautious. Struggling to deliver a competitive standalone AI model, the company recently published a research paper questioning whether models trained to mimic human thinking are truly advancing toward AGI. According to Apple’s researchers, model performance tends to deteriorate as analytic complexity rises, raising doubts about the industry’s boldest AGI claims.