Scale Ai Is Suing A Former Employee And Rival Mercor, Alleging They Tried To Steal Its Biggest Customers  

Scale AI, which helps tech companies hole information to train their AI models, revenge a suit against 1 of its erstwhile income labor and its rival Mercor connected Wednesday. The suit claims nan employee, who was hired by Mercor, “stole much than 100 confidential documents concerning Scale’s customer strategies and different proprietary information,” according to a transcript seen by TechCrunch.

Scale is suing Mercor for misappropriation of waste and acquisition secrets and is suing nan erstwhile employee, Eugene Ling, for breach of contract. The suit besides claims nan worker was trying to transportation Mercor to 1 of Scale’s largest customers earlier he officially near his erstwhile job. The suit calls this institution “Customer A.”

Mercor co-founder Surya Midha denies that his institution utilized immoderate information from Scale, though he admits that Ling whitethorn person been successful possession of some.

“While Mercor has hired galore group who departed Scale, we person nary liking successful immoderate of Scale’s waste and acquisition secrets and successful truth are intentionally moving our business successful a different way. Eugene informed america that he had aged documents successful a individual Google Drive, which we person ne'er accessed and are now investigating,” Midha told TechCrunch successful an emailed statement. 

“We reached retired to Scale six days agone offering to person Eugene destruct nan files aliases scope a different resolution, and we are now awaiting their response,” Midha said.

Scale alleges that these documents contained nan circumstantial information that would let Mercor to service Customer A, arsenic good arsenic respective different of Scale’s astir important clients.

Scale wanted Mercor to springiness it a afloat database of nan files successful nan drive, and to forestall Ling from moving pinch Customer A. It alleges successful nan suit that Mercor refused. Ling did not instantly respond to TechCrunch’s petition for comment.

There are scant clues successful nan suit astir nan personality of Customer A. The suit does opportunity that if Scale’s rival did triumph this customer away, it would beryllium a statement “worth millions of dollars to Mercor.”

Whatever nan specifications of this suit, it does show 1 thing: Scale is intelligibly concerned capable astir nan threat of Mercor to prosecute ineligible action. As TechCrunch antecedently reported, moreover pinch Meta’s multibillion-dollar finance into Scale, TBD Labs — nan halfway portion wrong Meta tasked pinch building AI superintelligence – is still utilizing Mercor and different LLM information training work providers.

Mercor is rising successful nan LLM training arena because it is known for hiring contented specialists, often PhDs, to train LLM information successful their areas of expertise.

In June, Scale announced that Meta was investing $14.3 cardinal for a 49% liking successful Scale and was hiring distant its founder. Shortly aft that, several of Scale AI’s largest information customers, who are competitors to Meta’s efforts, reportedly trim ties pinch it.