Alexandr Wang - the AI genius who made Zuckerberg bet 14 billion USD

Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old billionaire behind the startup Scale AI. (Photo: Big Technology)

“To President Trump: America Must Win the War on AI” is the full-page ad that ran in the print edition of the Washington Post earlier this year, the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president on January 20. Below it is the signature of Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old billionaire behind the startup Scale AI.

While not as well-known as OpenAI, Scale AI is a hot commodity in Silicon Valley, playing a big role in providing data to train leading AI models through a global workforce of hired workers. Known as the “labeling army,” these people categorize and label data—low-paid but crucial work in AI training.

Scale AI's ad in the Washington Post. (Photo: X/Alexandr Wang)

In mid-June, Meta caused a stir in the tech world when it spent $14.3 billion to buy 49% of Scale AI shares, inviting co-founder Wang to join and lead the team developing AGI. The Verge assessed that the act of attracting Wang was no different from buying a famous football or basketball star.

At just 28 years old, Wang possesses smart management and networking skills. He was invited to attend President Trump's inauguration, and met with many top leaders of countries such as French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the future of AI.

Dropping out of school to start Scale AI

Born in 1997 to Chinese immigrants in New Mexico, Wang co-founded Scale AI in 2016 with Lucy Guo, who surpassed singer Taylor Swift to become the world's youngest self-made female billionaire at the age of 30. Wang's parents are both highly educated, working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the site of the Manhattan Project during World War II - the birthplace of the atomic bomb.

Wang was a child prodigy who participated in many national math and coding competitions. In sixth grade, he entered his first national math competition to win free tickets to Disney World, and achieved his goal despite not winning first place. He was selected to compete in the US Mathematical Olympiad and was a member of the US National Physics Olympiad team in 2014. That same year, he was hired full-time for the question-and-answer site Quora.

In 2016, Wang enrolled in but quickly dropped out of MIT to co-found Scale AI with Guo before graduating. Three years later, the company’s artificial intelligence solutions have been deployed by some 300 companies, including big names in the self-driving car industry such as Alphabet’s Waymo, General Motors’ Cruise, and Uber Technologies.

Scale AI provides a range of sophisticated technology services, but it primarily does data labeling and AI evaluation for other companies. This niche approach helped Wang become the world’s youngest self-made billionaire in 2021, at age 24. His net worth is now estimated at more than $3 billion.

As it gained traction, Scale AI gradually shifted work to third-party contractors who could help the chatbot learn advanced coding, math, or chemistry. The company says it has “access” to 100,000 freelance professionals globally, to whom it has paid a total of $500 million to date.

Scale AI has also received significant investment, having raised a total of more than $1.6 billion from investors, according to the Telegraph. Famous Silicon Valley funds involved in Scale AI include Y Combinator, Founders Fund, and the most recent funding round includes Amazon, Intel, Qualcomm, and Meta.

Into the "sights" of Meta boss

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made no secret of his ambition to turn his social media empire into an AI company, which he calls “general artificial intelligence.” He has recently been reported to be looking to attract top talent from OpenAI, Google, and Scale AI as his company’s large language model Llama falls behind.

Last month, the WSJ reported that Meta had delayed the release of its “super-intelligent” model, codenamed Behemoth, because it was not performing as expected. Bloomberg reported that the AI lag had forced Meta’s CEO to personally recruit staff and arrange seats near new employees so they could talk to the leader immediately.

Wang’s recruitment was seen as a successful effort by Zuckerberg, despite the large sum of money that followed the $19 billion WhatsApp deal in 2014. A handful of Scale AI employees also joined Wang at Meta.

In turn, Wang said the deal with Meta “recognizes Scale AI’s achievements and affirms that the company’s path forward is limitless, just like the true capabilities of artificial intelligence.”

According to the Telegraph , Meta's investment in Scale AI will certainly be closely monitored, similar to the $13 billion Microsoft invested in OpenAI before, or the $2.5 billion deal Google made to hire expert Noam Shazeer and the Character.AI development team in August 2024.

"Zuckerberg is making a bet. But with Wang on board, he hopes to keep Meta at the forefront of the fight to achieve AGI," the Telegraph commented.

According to LY QUOC THINH/Nhan Dan Newspaper

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