Meta forms AI powerhouse by appointing Shengjia Zhao as chief scientist
The addition of Zhao strengthens Meta’s AI credibility as it races to catch up with OpenAI and Google.
Meta has appointed former OpenAI researcher Shengjia Zhao as Chief Scientist of its newly formed AI division, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL).
Zhao, known for his pivotal role in developing ChatGPT, GPT-4, and OpenAI’s first reasoning model, o1, will lead MSL’s research agenda under Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI.
Mark Zuckerberg confirmed Zhao’s appointment, saying he had been leading scientific efforts from the start and co-founded the lab.
Meta has aggressively recruited top AI talent to build out MSL, including senior researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, Apple, Anthropic, and its FAIR lab. Zhao’s presence helps balance the leadership team, as Wang lacks a formal research background.
Meta has reportedly offered massive compensation packages to lure experts, with Zuckerberg even contacting candidates personally and hosting them at his Lake Tahoe estate. MSL will focus on frontier AI, especially reasoning models, in which Meta currently trails competitors.
By 2026, MSL will gain access to Meta’s massive 1-gigawatt Prometheus cloud cluster in Ohio, designed to power large-scale AI training.
The investment and Meta’s parallel FAIR lab, led by Yann LeCun, signal the company’s multi-pronged strategy to catch up with OpenAI and Google in advanced AI research.
The collaboration dynamics between MSL, FAIR, and Meta’s generative AI unit remain unclear, but the company now boasts one of the strongest AI research teams in the industry.
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