What is Scale AI? Co-founder Alexandr Wang confirms 'massive investment' from Meta

Scale AI co-founder will leave company and join Mark Zuckerberg to work on AI efforts

Meta will acquire a significant stake in Scale AI, a fast-rising company co-founded by Alexandr Wang. Photo: CSIS

Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang confirmed that Meta is set to announce a significant investment in the company, and as a result he will leave Scale AI to join the social media giant.

"I have agreed that Jason Droege will step in as interim CEO," he wrote on X in a lengthy letter to the company.

The investment in Scale AI is the latest in a series of moves made by Meta's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to propel his company to the front of the AI race.

The social media company could pump as much as $15 billion into Scale AI, according to technology news site, The Information, who first reported the deal several days ago.

Scale AI makes the tools that other technology companies use to increase the reliability of their AI solutions. Its software assists with identifying items in photos, tagging subjects within large amounts of text, and labelling that information so it can be used in AI apps and chatbots.

The company says its largely automated software allows humans to easily review and make changes for accuracy purposes, giving peace of mind to those concerned about unconstrained AI.

Scale AI's, which helps organise and label AI data, lists Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, the US Air Force and US Army, among others as clients.

Why did Meta invest in Scale AI?

Despite a significant pivot to AI in recent years, the introduction of language models like Llama and pouring billions into research, Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – is largely seen as an also-ran in the AI race.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg's investment in Scale AI is a leap of faith that the company's much-coveted AI labelling solutions will give the social media giant a decided advantage.

By any objective standard, he believes in and is making a big bet on Mr Wang.

"While it is bittersweet to depart as CEO, I would never leave Scale AI behind" Mr Wang wrote on Thursday evening, adding that he would be staying on the company's board of directors.

"I'll be continuing to support Scale's mission and long-term vision," he added.

Who is Alexandr Wang?

Mr Wang, from Los Alamos, New Mexico, founded Scale AI in 2016 shortly after dropping out of MIT when he saw AI developments creating the need for ways to label, curate and manage high-quality training data for both technology companies and other large businesses.

That proved to be a wise calculation.

As of 2025, according to Mr Wang Scale AI has more than 1,500 employees and has secured at least $1.3 billion in financing, resulting in a $13.8 billion valuation.

Few companies in the world currently have the equivalent of Scale AI’s defence and commercial portfolio. It lists Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, the US Air Force and the US Army as clients.

Scale AI’s rapid rise has also put Mr Wang in the rarefied air of AI tech entrepreneurs such as Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

He has graced the cover of magazines and even testified before Congress.

Defending defence contracts

Amid a technology climate that is increasingly seeing protests and demonstrations from those concerned about AI being used by militaries, Mr Wang has been steadfast in championing his company’s work with its military clients.

“Knowing about the history of where I grew up, and the impact that Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project had on Pax Americana and the global order, it felt so clear that great AI technology needs to be applied to national security problems,” he said in May at Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

A visit to China, where he saw AI companies working on facial recognition and surveillance, bolstered the entrepreneur's belief that Scale AI should work with US defence entities.

“At that moment, it was clear for me that the US would need to have the highest quality human capital and the best companies focused on this problem,” he said, referring to national security.

At the AI + conference in Washington, Scale AI's Alexandr Wang said the US had fallen behind in terms of data in the race for AI dominance. Photo: Cody Combs

“We’re at the brink of this incredibly powerful new technology and the applications for national security are obvious.”

Most recently, during an appearance at the AI + Expo in Washington this month, he warned that although the US and China were “neck and neck” in the race for AI superiority, Beijing was ahead in terms of accumulating data to build AI models.

“China has had large-scale government programmes to win on data,” Mr Wang said. But he added that privacy is not a top priority for Beijing.

He advocated the creation in the US of a national data reserve and for American leaders to view data in the same way as petroleum or other natural resources.

“There's so much incredibly useful and valuable data that right now is fragmented and not leveraged for building powerful capabilities,” he said.