Meta Platforms has officially named Shengjia Zhao, a key co-creator of OpenAI's ChatGPT and GPT-4, as the Chief Scientist for its newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). The appointment of Zhao, reportedly around 30 years old and a recent PhD graduate, underscores Meta's aggressive strategy to accelerate its artificial intelligence capabilities and challenge industry leaders. This move highlights a significant shift towards prioritizing skill and intelligence over traditional seniority in high-stakes AI leadership roles.
Zhao's rapid ascent to a chief scientist position at a major corporation like Meta is notably unconventional. As stated in a recent social media post by Yuchen Jin, "A 30-year-old in that role at a big corp is unheard of." This aligns with a philosophy championed by Alexandr Wang, former CEO of Scale AI and now Meta's Chief AI Officer, who proposed the "merit, excellence, intelligence" (MEI) hiring principle. Mark Zuckerberg appears to be actively implementing this principle, emphasizing that "Skill >> Seniority."
Meta Superintelligence Labs is central to the company's ambitious AI roadmap, focusing on developing foundational models like the open-source Llama series and pursuing artificial general intelligence (AGI). The company has committed to investing "hundreds of billions of dollars" into AI compute infrastructure, signaling a robust push to compete with rivals. Zhao will work directly with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, leading the scientific direction for this critical unit.
The appointment comes amidst Meta's aggressive talent acquisition drive, which has seen the company recruit numerous high-profile researchers from competitors such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Apple, and Anthropic. This influx of top-tier talent is designed to bolster Meta's position in the intense global AI race. While Meta's current open-source model, LLaMA 4, is still catching up to OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google's Gemini, the company is reportedly preparing to launch a more advanced model, codenamed "Behemoth," later this year.
Zhao's contributions at OpenAI included pioneering a new scaling paradigm and playing a foundational role in the development of the o1 reasoning model, which influenced the "chain-of-thought" approach in AI. His expertise is expected to be pivotal in Meta's pursuit of advanced AI systems. This strategic hire solidifies Meta's commitment to attracting leading minds and fostering an environment where breakthrough innovation is prioritized, regardless of conventional career timelines.