Determined to rebound from the Llama 4 Behemoth delay, Meta Platforms is swinging for the fences in its artificial intelligence efforts, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally supervising creation of a new AI lab focused on superintelligence. Meta has reportedly reached a deal to pay up to $15 billion for a stake in a startup called Scale AI that would bring its 28-year-old co-founder and CEO Alexandr Wang in-house to lead the effort. Other leading Scale AI staff would also come aboard, and Meta is said to be recruiting researchers from OpenAI and Google by dangling “seven- to nine-figure compensation packages,” reports indicate.

Since OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT in 2022 “the tech industry has raced to build increasingly powerful AI,” with Zuckerberg pushing Meta “to incorporate AI across its products, including in its smart glasses and a recently released app, Meta AI,” reports The New York Times.

Last month, the company restructured its AI operations in an effort to turbo charge its efforts.

“Staying in the race is crucial for Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft, with the technology likely to be the future for the industry,” NYT writes, noting that “the giants have pumped money into startups and their own AI labs,” with Microsoft investing “more than $13 billion in OpenAI, while Amazon has plowed $8 billion into the AI startup Anthropic.”

“Zuckerberg has prioritized recruiting for the secretive new team,” interviewing targeted talent at his homes in Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe, according to Bloomberg, which says “he has an audacious goal in mind,” seeking to establish Meta as the leader in developing “artificial general intelligence or AGI, the notion that machines can perform as well as humans at many tasks,” even exceeding them across a broad spectrum.

Zuckerberg is targeting around 50 new hires for the superintelligence lab, and has “rearranged desks at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters so the new staff will sit near him,” Bloomberg explains. The Scale AI deal, which is part of the plan, would value the startup at $28 billion, according to Bloomberg, which says it would be Meta’s largest acquisition to date.

The Information put the Scale investment at $15 billion, while CNBC says it is “more than $10 billion.”

Scale AI was co-founded by Wang, who formerly worked at Quora, in 2016 with funding from startup accelerator Y Combinator. Bloomberg writes Scale “offers data services to help companies train their models and builds custom AI applications for businesses and governments.”