In a significant move that signals its deepening focus on advanced artificial intelligence, Meta has appointed Shengjia Zhao, co-creator of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as the Chief Scientist of its recently established Superintelligence Lab.
The newly created lab forms a core part of Meta’s broader strategy to stay ahead in the escalating AI race, as the company ramps up investments in building general-purpose AI systems. Zhao’s appointment reflects Meta’s ambition to bring on board top talent from across the AI industry, particularly those with hands-on experience in building frontier models.
Focus on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
The Superintelligence Lab at Meta is reportedly working on building systems that go beyond today’s AI capabilities, venturing into the realm of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)—machines capable of performing any intellectual task a human can do. Zhao is expected to play a key role in shaping this vision, leveraging his extensive research background in large language models (LLMs), machine learning, and neural network interpretability.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, has in recent months emphasized the company's long-term AI goals. The creation of this lab and Zhao’s onboarding reflect an intent to compete with other major players like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic, all of whom are actively developing general-purpose AI models.
Zhao’s Journey from OpenAI to Meta
Shengjia Zhao was instrumental in the early development of ChatGPT at OpenAI, contributing to the model architecture and training approaches that underpinned its rapid success. Prior to joining Meta, Zhao served as a senior research scientist focusing on scalable alignment and reasoning capabilities in large AI systems.
At Meta, Zhao is expected to lead a team of researchers focused on safe and efficient scaling of AI models while addressing concerns related to AI bias, interpretability, and responsible deployment. His appointment underscores Meta’s renewed focus on making its AI technologies both powerful and safe.
Meta’s Strategic AI Expansion
Meta’s AI ambitions have grown rapidly over the past year, with the company integrating generative AI across products including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Its Llama family of open-source LLMs has been well received by the developer community, and the company recently announced progress on multi-modal capabilities and custom AI agents.
The Superintelligence Lab, based in the U.S. and expected to expand internationally, will function as a high-level research unit separate from Meta’s product-focused AI teams. It will prioritize long-term research over short-term product rollouts, according to internal reports.
Zhao’s leadership is also seen as a strategic move to foster collaboration across academia and the open-source AI ecosystem—an area Meta continues to champion.
The Race to AI Leadership
As competition in AI intensifies globally, Meta’s latest appointment highlights its intention to be a frontrunner in developing foundational AI models that could eventually power intelligent assistants, code-generation tools, and even autonomous systems. With Zhao’s experience and research acumen, Meta is poised to strengthen its position in the global AI innovation landscape.
The tech industry is closely watching how Zhao’s transition from OpenAI to Meta will shape the next chapter in the evolution of AI, particularly in the space of safety-aligned superintelligent systems.