- Both create training data for frontier AI labs using large expert workforces.
- Scale AI reported about $870 million in 2024 revenue and took a large Meta investment in 2025; Surge AI reported $1.2 billion in 2024 revenue without outside funding.
- Surge has been reported buying workplace archives to build agent training environments.
At a glance
| Scale AI | Surge AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2016 | 2020 |
| Founder | Alexandr Wang (co-founder) | Edwin Chen |
| Focus | Data labeling and expert-written data, defense work | RLHF, RL environments, language annotation |
| Revenue, 2024 | About $870 million | $1.2 billion |
| Funding | Raised $1 billion in May 2024; large Meta investment in June 2025 | Bootstrapped as of June 2025 |
| Customers named in reporting | Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, US Department of Defense | Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, US Army |
| Buys company archives? | Not reported | Reported, for agent training environments |
Sources: SiliconANGLE, SiliconANGLE, Wikipedia, MIT Technology Review.
Ownership and independence
Meta's investment in Scale AI in June 2025, and Alexandr Wang's move to Meta, matter if you compete with Meta. Surge AI was majority owned by its founder as of September 2025 (Wikipedia). Ask either vendor how it separates work for competing customers.
For data holders
If you hold a workplace archive, Surge is the more likely buyer of the two, based on reporting that it buys Slack, email and calendar histories for reinforcement learning environments (MIT Technology Review). Neither is an adviser to sellers: they are counterparties. See questions to ask an AI data buyer.
For AI teams
Both create data to your specification with their own workforce. If you need data that already exists, such as real support conversations or code history, licensing it from a holder is a different route. See broker vs labeling vendor.
Read next
Questions
Which is bigger, Scale AI or Surge AI?
By reported 2024 revenue, Surge AI ($1.2 billion, per Wikipedia) was larger than Scale AI (about $870 million, per SiliconANGLE citing Bloomberg).
Is DataAnnotation owned by Surge AI?
Surge AI lists Data Annotation among its subsidiaries, according to Wikipedia.
Sources
- SiliconANGLE: Meta reportedly in talks on $10B+ investment in Scale AI (June 2025)
- SiliconANGLE: Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang departs to join Meta, securing multibillion-dollar investment (June 2025)
- Wikipedia: Surge AI
- MIT Technology Review: AI labs are buying data from dead startups to train models (October 2026)