- Meta agreed to acquire a 49% stake in Scale AI, which could advance its metaverse and AI solutions as it aims to tap into the $320 billion US military-industrial complex.
Meta Platforms, Inc. has recently doubled down on its artificial intelligence (AI) venture. According to The Information, the company formerly known as Facebook, Inc., has agreed to acquire a 49% stake in Scale AI, an entity established by a Canadian consortium.
Meta to Finalize 49% Acquisition of Scale AI
Citing people familiar with the matter, the parties have yet to finalize the deal. Nonetheless, Scale AI’s investors, including Accel, Index Ventures, Founders Fund, and Greenoaks, as well as existing and former employees, were optimistic about the subject. They believe that Meta’s involvement would be beneficial to the AI platform, especially in its mainstream expansion.
Based on its official website, Scale AI is a co-investment and innovation hub. It raised funding from a government subsidy, which private contributors matched. The business secured $284 million in funding from the Canadian Government and an additional $53 million from the Government of Quebec.
Scale AI hosts vast amounts of curated training data, which is crucial in developing advanced tools similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT or China’s DeepSeek. If successful, it could significantly contribute to Meta’s planned “superintelligence” lab.
Boosting Meta’s Metaverse Venture with AI
Early this year, Meta, through Chief Technology Officer Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, gave its metaverse division, Reality Labs, a make-or-break ultimatum. The executive warned them that 2025 will be the “most critical” phase of the program, and they must prove whether it’s still worth continuing.
In its Form 10-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2024, Meta disclosed that its overall operating profit was negatively impacted by $17.73 billion in losses resulting from its investments in the metaverse.
With that, critics argued that its new superintelligence venture may only turn out to be just another flop on a scale similar to its multi-billion-dollar metaverse project. However, the company may have recently found its silver lining with its newly forged partnership with Anduril Industries, a technology solutions provider to the US military.
The alliance would enable the integration of Meta’s AI and metaverse technology in training American military personnel in various warfare scenarios. Additionally, the partners expect their extended reality (XR) and AI solutions to make a considerable contribution to enhancing information gathering and detection on the battlefield. Overall, they claimed that the program aims to maintain the USA’s technological superiority on the battlefield at the expense of private funding rather than taxpayers’ money.
Scale AI’s solutions would undoubtedly be a crucial ingredient in Meta’s involvement in the USA’s $320 billion military-industrial complex.
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