OpenAI sticks with Scale AI after Meta’s $29B investment

OpenAI says it will keep working with Scale AI even after Meta Platforms Inc. made its multibillion-dollar investment in the data-labeling firm.

At the VivaTech conference in Paris on Friday, OpenAI’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, stressed the importance of keeping a wide range of partners. As mentioned in a Bloomberg report, she warned that shutting competitors out could slow down progress across the industry.

“We don’t want to ice the ecosystem because acquisitions are going to happen,” Friar said. “If we ice each other out, I think we’re actually going to slow the pace of innovation.”

OpenAI is the first of Scale AI’s major clients to speak up since Meta announced the deal on Thursday. Under the agreement, Meta will take a 49% stake in Scale, valuing the startup at more than $29 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Scale AI was set up in 2016 to supply cleaned and organized data that helps train artificial-intelligence systems. The company also creates custom AI tools for corporate and government customers.

Proceeds from the new investment, Scale AI says, will go to its shareholders, speed up its research and development, and bolster service for existing clients. Meta will remain a minority owner of Scale’s shares.

For Meta, this is one of its biggest outside investments. The move underscores the company’s effort to shore up its AI work after delays on a key new model.

Scale AI sees leadership shuffle as Meta deepens ties

The Wall Street Journal had reported earlier that Meta aimed to invest about $14 billion for a nearly half-stake in Scale AI. According to Scale, the partnership will widen their commercial ties and help roll out Scale’s data solutions more quickly.

A Meta spokesperson added, “We will deepen the work we do together producing data for AI models, and Alexandr Wang will join Meta to work on our superintelligence efforts. We will share more about this effort and the great people joining this team in the coming weeks.”

Despite moving to Meta, Scale’s founder, Alexandr Wang, will stay on the startup’s board. Jason Droege, who became Scale’s chief strategy officer in September, will serve as interim CEO.

Based in San Francisco and now nine years old, Scale AI employs over 100,000 independent contractors worldwide. These workers tag images, craft sentences, and type out entire passages. Their efforts teach AI programs how to recognize objects, form thoughts, and generate human-like text.

Scale AI counts OpenAI, Google, and Meta among its clients. It has also started offering software that lets businesses build their own AI tools, though that remains a smaller slice of its work.

Before joining Scale, Jason Droege was a venture partner at Benchmark, an early-stage investment firm, and he co-founded Uber Eats, the ride-hailing giant’s food-delivery service.

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