Meta announces its Superintelligence Labs Chief Scientist: former Open AI GPT-4 co-creator Shengjia Zhao

Meta has made a significant announcement by appointing Shengjia Zhao, a notable former researcher from OpenAI and co-creator of GPT-4, as the Chief Scientist for its newly established Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). Mark Zuckerberg shared this news on Threads, highlighting Zhao's crucial role in steering the lab's scientific direction alongside him and Alexandr Wang, the newly appointed Chief AI Officer and former CEO of Scale AI. Expressing his enthusiasm for the new role, Zhao stated on Threads, "I am very excited to take up the role of chief scientist for Meta Superintelligence Labs. Looking forward to building artificial superintelligence and aligning it to empower people with the amazing team here. Let’s build!" The term "artificial superintelligence" refers to advanced systems that surpass human capabilities, which poses challenges in terms of control and ethics. Zhao brings a wealth of experience to Meta, having played a pivotal role in developing foundational models like GPT-4 and GPT-4o, as acknowledged in academic research and papers. His contributions to generative models and fair representations have been recognized in prestigious conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR. This strategic appointment comes as Meta intensifies its hiring efforts in the competitive AI landscape. The company has recently attracted talent from industry giants including OpenAI, Apple, Google, and Anthropic, as part of a multibillion-dollar investment in superintelligence. As part of this initiative, Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI, securing a significant stake and appointing Wang to spearhead its superintelligence projects. Furthermore, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman has also joined the growing team. To attract top-tier AI talent, Meta has reportedly offered compensation packages ranging from $100 million to $300 million over four years. Some reports even suggest that one candidate was offered an astonishing $1.25 billion over four years, a claim that has highlighted the fierce competition for skilled individuals in the field. Insiders indicate that senior AI scientists may be earning upwards of $10 million annually, while some new hires have been reported to begin with packages around $100 million. Zuckerberg has made it clear that he aims to position Meta at the forefront of AI innovation, declaring plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into computing resources to develop superintelligence, leveraging the company's own revenues. He also mentioned that the recent rollout of Llama 4 emphasizes the necessity of having a top-notch team to develop effective models, stating, "You can have hundreds of thousands of GPUs, but if you don’t have the right team developing the model, it doesn’t matter." While the formation of Meta Superintelligence Labs signifies a focused mission to create and ethically align artificial superintelligence with human values, it follows a challenging launch of its latest open-source models. Despite the promising capabilities of the Llama 4 model family released in April 2025, its adoption has faced obstacles due to strong competition from emerging Chinese open-source alternatives and criticism regarding its real-world performance. Critics have raised concerns over the quality of Llama 4, alleging issues with benchmark results and inconsistent performance. Some have accused Meta of manipulating benchmarks to enhance public perception, a claim the company has refuted. Internal reports suggest that rapid release schedules and technical glitches contributed to these challenges, casting a shadow over Meta's credibility in generative AI as it embarks on this ambitious endeavor. Jim Fan, a former colleague of Zhao at Stanford and now a distinguished scientist at Nvidia, expressed his confidence in Zhao’s capabilities, stating, "Shengjia is one of the brightest, humblest, and most passionate scientists I know. Very bullish on MSL!" This appointment highlights Meta's aggressive strategy to secure a competitive edge in what it considers the next foundational technology platform, one that may surpass the significance of the mobile internet. For Zuckerberg, the pursuit of artificial superintelligence represents not just a goal but a vital frontier for the company’s future.