Meta

Meta bets big on AI, partners with Scale AI in strategic move

Meta Platforms has made a major move in the AI space by investing $14.8 billion in Scale AI, acquiring a 49% stake and pushing the data-labelling startup’s valuation past $29 billion.

As part of the deal, Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang will join Meta’s leadership to head its new superintelligence unit, while continuing to serve on Scale AI’s board. The investment deepens Meta’s commercial ties with Scale and is seen as a strategic step to secure top-tier AI expertise.

Scale AI will use the funds to drive innovation and strengthen client partnerships, while also providing partial liquidity to shareholders and equity holders. Jason Droege, Scale’s Chief Strategy Officer and former Uber Eats executive, will serve as interim CEO.

‘This partnership is a testament to our team’s work and the scale of opportunity ahead,’ said Droege. Wang added, ‘Meta’s investment affirms the limitless path forward for AI and Scale’s role in bridging human values with transformative technologies.’

Scale will remain independent, continuing to support AI labs, corporations, and government agencies with data infrastructure as the race for AI dominance intensifies.

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Meta’s V-JEPA 2 teaches AI to think, plan, and act in 3D space

Meta has released V-JEPA 2, an open-source AI model designed to understand and predict real-world environments in 3D. Described as a ‘world model’, it enables machines to simulate physical spaces—offering a breakthrough for robotics, self-driving cars, and intelligent assistants.

Unlike traditional AI that relies on labelled data, V-JEPA 2 learns from unlabelled video clips, building an internal simulation of how the world works. However, now, AI can reason, plan, and act more like humans.

Based on Meta’s JEPA architecture and containing 1.2 billion parameters, the model improves significantly on action prediction and environmental modelling compared to its predecessor.

Meta says this approach mirrors how humans intuitively understand cause and effect—like predicting a ball’s motion or avoiding people in a crowd. V-JEPA 2 helps AI agents develop this same intuition, making them more adaptive in dynamic, unfamiliar situations.

Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun describes world models as ‘abstract digital twins of reality’—vital for machines to understand and predict what comes next. This effort aligns with Meta’s broader push into AI, including a planned $14 billion investment in Scale AI for data labelling.

V-JEPA 2 joins a growing wave of interest in world models. Google DeepMind is building its own called Genie, while AI researcher Fei-Fei Li recently raised $230 million for her startup World Labs, focused on similar goals.

Meta believes V-JEPA 2 brings us closer to machines that can learn, adapt, and operate in the physical world with far greater autonomy and intelligence.

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Meta hires top AI talent from Google and Sesame

Meta is assembling a new elite AI research team aimed at developing artificial general intelligence (AGI), luring top talent from rivals including Google and AI voice startup Sesame.

Among the high-profile recruits is Jack Rae, a principal researcher from Google DeepMind, and Johan Schalkwyk, a machine learning lead from Sesame.

Meta is also close to finalising a multibillion-dollar investment in Scale AI, a data-labelling startup led by CEO Alexandr Wang, who is also expected to join the new initiative.

The new group, referred to internally as the ‘superintelligence’ team, is central to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to close the gap with competitors like Google and OpenAI.

Following disappointment over Meta’s recent AI model, Llama 4, Zuckerberg hopes the newly acquired expertise will help improve future models and expand AI capabilities in areas like voice and personalisation.

Zuckerberg has taken a hands-on approach, personally recruiting engineers and researchers, sometimes meeting with them at his homes in California. Meta is reportedly offering compensation packages worth tens of millions of dollars, including equity, to attract leading AI talent.

The company aims to hire around 50 people for the team and is also seeking a chief scientist to help lead the effort.

The broader strategy involves investing heavily in data, chips, and human expertise — three pillars of advanced AI development. By partnering with Scale AI and recruiting high-profile researchers, Meta is trying to strengthen its position in the AI race.

Meanwhile, rivals like Google are reinforcing their defences, with Koray Kavukcuoglu named as chief AI architect in a new senior leadership role to ensure DeepMind’s technologies are more tightly integrated into Google’s products.

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Meta launches AI to teach machines physical reasoning

Meta Platforms has unveiled V-JEPA 2, an open-source AI model designed to help machines understand and interact with the physical world more like humans do.

The technology allows AI agents, including delivery robots and autonomous vehicles, to observe object movement and predict how those objects may behave in response to actions.

The company explained that just as people intuitively understand that a ball tossed into the air will fall due to gravity, AI systems using V-JEPA 2 gain a similar ability to reason about cause and effect in the real world.

Trained using video data, the model recognises patterns in how humans and objects move and interact, helping machines learn to reach, grasp, and reposition items more naturally.

Meta described the tool as a step forward in building AI that can think ahead, plan actions and respond intelligently to dynamic environments. In lab tests, robots powered by V-JEPA 2 performed simple tasks that relied on spatial awareness and object handling.

The company, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is ramping up its AI initiatives to compete with rivals like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI. By improving machine reasoning through world models such as V-JEPA 2, Meta aims to accelerate its progress toward more advanced AI.

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Meta and TikTok contest the EU’s compliance charges

Meta and TikTok have taken their fight against an the EU supervisory fee to Europe’s second-highest court, arguing that the charges are disproportionate and based on flawed calculations.

The fee, introduced under the Digital Services Act (DSA), requires major online platforms to pay 0.05% of their annual global net income to cover the European Commission’s oversight costs.

Meta questioned the Commission’s methodology, claiming the levy was based on the entire group’s revenue instead of the specific EU-based subsidiary.

The company’s lawyer told judges it still lacked clarity on how the fee was calculated, describing the process as opaque and inconsistent with the spirit of the law.

TikTok also criticised the charge, alleging inaccurate and discriminatory data inflated its payment.

Its legal team argued that user numbers were double-counted when people switched between devices. The Commission had wrongly calculated fees based on group profits rather than platform-specific earnings.

The Commission defended its approach, saying group resources should bear the cost when consolidated accounts are used. A ruling is expected from the General Court sometime next year.

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Meta strikes $15B deal with Scale AI

Meta Platforms is set to acquire a 49 percent stake in Scale AI for nearly $15 billion, marking its largest-ever deal.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees The agreement as a significant move to accelerate Meta’s push into AI instead of relying solely on in-house development.

Scale AI, founded in 2016, supplies curated training data to major players such as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Meta. The company expects to more than double its revenue in 2025 to around $2 billion.

Once the deal is finalised, Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang is expected to join Meta’s new AI team focused on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI).

According to Bloomberg, Zuckerberg is hiring around 50 people for a ‘superintelligence’ team.

The effort aligns with Meta’s broader AI plans, including capital expenditure of up to $65 billion in 2025 to expand its AI infrastructure instead of falling behind rivals in the AI race.

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Meta boosts AGI efforts with new team

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Platforms CEO, is reportedly building a new team dedicated to achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), aiming for machines that can match or exceed human intellect.

The initiative is linked to an investment exceeding $10 billion in Scale AI, whose founder, Alexandr Wang, is expected to join the AGI group. Meta has not yet commented on these reports.

Zuckerberg’s personal involvement in recruiting around 50 experts, including a new head of AI research, is partly driven by dissatisfaction with Meta’s recent large language model, Llama 4. Last month, Meta even delayed the release of its flagship ‘Behemoth’ AI model due to internal concerns about its performance.

The move signals an intensifying race in the AI sector, as rivals like OpenAI are also making strategic adjustments to attract further investment in their pursuit of AGI. This highlights a clear push by major tech players towards developing more advanced and capable AI systems.

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Meta plans $10 billion investment in Scale AI

Meta Platforms is reportedly in talks to invest over $10 billion in Scale AI, a data labelling startup already backed by Nvidia, Amazon, and Meta itself.

The deal, if finalised, would mark Meta’s largest external investment in AI to date, representing a notable shift away from its prior reliance on in-house research and open-source projects.

Founded in 2016, Scale AI supports the training of AI models through high-quality labelled datasets. It also provides a platform for AI research collaboration, now with contributors in more than 9,000 locations.

The company was last valued at nearly $14 billion following a 2024 funding round involving Meta and Microsoft.

Meta’s planned investment signals an aggressive expansion of its AI ambitions. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced up to $65 billion in AI spending for 2025. It includes Meta’s Llama chatbot, now embedded into Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, reaching one billion users monthly.

The move puts Meta in closer competition with Microsoft, which has committed over $13 billion to OpenAI, and Amazon and Alphabet, which are backing rival AI firm Anthropic. Scale AI declined to comment, while Meta has yet to respond publicly.

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Meta inks 20-year nuclear deal to power AI expansion

Meta has entered a landmark 20-year agreement with Constellation to purchase 1.1 gigawatts of nuclear power from the Clinton Clean Energy Center in Illinois, starting in 2027.

The deal is designed to support the company’s rapidly growing AI infrastructure and data centres as energy demands surge across the tech industry.

Once facing closure due to financial losses, the Clinton plant’s future is secure — without relying on Illinois’ Zero Emission Credit programme. The agreement will keep over 1,100 local jobs, boost grid capacity by 30 megawatts, and generate an estimated $13.5 million in annual tax revenue.

Illinois lawmakers have praised the deal for its economic and environmental benefits, with Republican Regan Deering calling it ‘a forward-thinking investment.’

The partnership is part of Meta’s broader strategy to build a nuclear-powered AI ecosystem. With clean energy targets of 1 to 4 gigawatts, Meta has been negotiating with multiple nuclear providers and says further agreements are in the final stages.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, global data centre energy use is set to more than double by 2030 — potentially outstripping Japan’s entire electricity consumption. Meta alone plans to invest $65 billion in AI infrastructure in 2025.

The Clinton plant deal also serves as a hedge against the environmental impact of fossil fuels. A 2024 study by the Brattle Group estimated that closing the facility would have led to an additional 34 million metric tons of carbon emissions over two decades. It would also have dealt an annual $765 million blow to Illinois’ GDP.

Constellation, the plant’s operator, said consistent, carbon-free baseload power is essential for the AI-driven future. With its reliability and scale, nuclear energy is increasingly seen as critical to supporting always-on AI systems.

Meanwhile, Meta continues advancing its AI vision. The company plans to fully automate ad creation by late 2026, generating images, videos, and text tailored to user location and timing.

This automation effort has already boosted ad performance, with Q1 2025 results showing a 30% rise in AI-generated ad use, a 10% increase in average ad prices, and $42.31 billion in revenue — a 16% year-over-year jump.

However, the push for AI-generated content has unsettled the advertising industry. Firms like Omnicom Group have seen share prices dip over fears disrupting to traditional creative and production models.

Zuckerberg’s long-term AI vision includes automating marketing and enhancing user experience through AI companions and virtual therapists — part of Meta’s goal to integrate machine learning into everyday life while ensuring its platforms run on clean, scalable energy.

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Eminem sues Meta over copyright violations

Eminem has filed a major lawsuit against Meta, accusing the tech giant of knowingly enabling widespread copyright infringement across its platforms. The rapper’s publishing company, Eight Mile Style, is seeking £80.6 million in damages, claiming 243 of his songs were used without authorisation.

The lawsuit argues that Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, allowed tools such as Original Audio and Reels to encourage unauthorised reproduction and use of Eminem’s music.

The filing claims it occurred without proper licensing or attribution, significantly diminishing the value of his copyrights.

Eminem’s legal team contends that Meta profited from the infringement instead of ensuring his works were protected. If a settlement cannot be reached, the artist is demanding the maximum statutory damages — $150,000 per song — which would amount to over $109 million.

Meta has faced similar lawsuits before, including a high-profile case in 2022 brought by Epidemic Sound, which alleged the unauthorised use of thousands of its tracks. The latest claim adds to growing pressure on social media platforms to address copyright violations more effectively.

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