Deutsche Telekom, Nvidia to build AI cloud for industry in Germany

Meta's $15B investment for a 49% stake in Scale AI has disrupted the AI industry, valuing the company at $29B. Scale CEO Alexandr Wang will lead Meta's "superintelligence" initiative while Scale transitions to new leadership under Jason Droege. The deal raises questions about Google's future access to Scale's data services, as Google is reportedly Scale's largest customer. While Scale remains technically independent, industry watchers question whether Meta will eventually restrict competitors' access to Scale's critical AI data annotation resources, potentially forcing Google and others to find alternative solutions.

The tech M&A market is increasingly focused on data infrastructure companies rather than flashy AI applications. As AI development accelerates, the true value lies in cloud storage, networking, and data architecture solutions that enable AI systems to function. Recent acquisition trends favor companies providing enterprise data management, storage, security, and networking technologies. This shift reflects growing recognition that robust data infrastructure forms the essential foundation for AI innovation, with firms offering reliable, scalable solutions becoming prime acquisition targets.

OpenAI will maintain its partnership with Scale AI despite Meta's recent acquisition of a 49% stake in the company, valued at approximately $15 billion. While Scale AI's founder Alexandr Wang will join Meta to lead AI research initiatives, he'll remain on Scale's board as Jason Droege becomes interim CEO. Scale will use Meta's investment to accelerate innovation and strengthen partnerships. OpenAI's CFO Sarah Friar emphasized the importance of continued collaboration across the ecosystem to maintain innovation pace, noting that severing ties following acquisitions would slow progress. Scale AI will continue serving multiple AI companies including both OpenAI and Meta, maintaining its position as a critical data infrastructure provider for advanced AI models.

AMD is expanding its AI presence through strategic acquisitions of startups like Nod.ai and Mipsology to enhance its chip and software capabilities. At its Advancing AI 2025 event, AMD unveiled an open AI ecosystem vision featuring new silicon, software, and systems. The company is building an open, scalable infrastructure supported by its ROCm ecosystem, collaborating with partners like Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft. AMD's upcoming Instinct MI400 GPUs have received positive early feedback. Through these initiatives, AMD aims to challenge Nvidia's dominance by focusing on open software platforms and leveraging startup expertise to inform its product development.