Meta Platforms is reportedly acquiring a 49% stake in Scale AI, a leading data labeling company that powers many AI applications, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeks to strengthen Meta’s position in the competitive artificial intelligence landscape.
After days of speculation, The Information reported on Tuesday that Meta has finalized a $14.8 billion deal for a significant minority share in Scale AI.
According to sources familiar with the negotiations, the transaction was completed in cash and includes Scale AI’s CEO, Alexandr Wang, joining Meta as part of a new “Superintelligence” initiative.
Bloomberg reported on Monday that Zuckerberg has grown frustrated with Meta’s progress in AI and is assembling a large team to pursue artificial general intelligence — a future form of AI that could match or surpass human cognitive abilities.
Ben Goertzel, a computer scientist and founder of SingularityNET, an AI decentralized ecosystem, says major breakthroughs in AGI could be a few years away.
“We’re likely to be able to launch AGI that can think and generalize beyond its training and programming within the next one to three years,” he told Cointelegraph in a recent interview.
Goertzel says decentralization offers the best path for safeguarding the future of AGI.
In the meantime, Big Tech firms are intensifying their efforts to be among the first to achieve this potentially transformative milestone.
Big Tech’s AI spending grows
America’s largest technology companies — including Meta, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft — are expected to invest $320 billion in AI and related data center infrastructure this year alone, according to CNBC. That represents a sharp increase from the $230 billion invested last year.
A separate analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence’s Robert Schiffman found that AI capital expenditures have increased by 16% since the start of 2025.
As AI spending continues to grow, companies involved in building the underlying infrastructure are well-positioned to benefit.
Goldman Sachs analyzed a basket of stocks in the AI data center and electrical equipment sectors and found they have risen 52% and 39%, respectively, since their April lows.