Meta's AI Talent War Escalates: ChatGPT Co-Creator Joins as Chief Scientist

Meta hires Shengjia Zhao, co-creator of ChatGPT and former lead scientist at OpenAI, as chief scientist of its Superintelligence Labs. Meta is escalating the AI talent war with OpenAI. Zuckerberg has invested $15 billion in Scale AI and created Meta Superintelligence Labs to focus on foundational models and next-gen research.

Meta Platforms has appointed Shengjia Zhao, a prominent AI researcher and co-creator of ChatGPT, as the Chief Scientist of its Superintelligence Labs. This move is part of Meta's aggressive push into advanced AI and its ongoing talent war with OpenAI and other tech giants.

Zhao, who has been instrumental in several breakthroughs at OpenAI, including the development of ChatGPT and the company's first AI reasoning model, o1, will set the research agenda for Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). He will work under the leadership of Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI, who was recently hired to lead the new unit.

Meta's investment in AI talent is evident in this appointment. The company has been actively recruiting top researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Safe Superintelligence, Apple, and Anthropic, as well as pulling researchers from its existing FAIR and GenAI units. Zuckerberg has gone to great lengths to staff up his AI superintelligence labs, reportedly offering some researchers eight and nine-figure compensation packages.

Meta's Superintelligence Lab was launched in June 2025 with the aim of developing advanced AI models. The lab is separate from Meta's long-standing AI research group, FAIR, which will continue to focus on long-term AI research. With the addition of Zhao, Meta now has two chief AI scientists, including Yann LeCun, the leader of Meta's FAIR.

Meta has also upped its investment in cloud computing infrastructure to support MSL's research efforts. By 2026, Zhao and MSL's researchers should have access to Meta's one gigawatt cloud computing cluster, Prometheus, located in Ohio. This will help Meta conduct the massive training runs required to create competitive frontier AI models.

Meta's aggressive recruitment campaign in the AI sector is a response to the underwhelming performance of its Llama 4 model. The company aims to release a more advanced model, internally codenamed "Behemoth," later this year. Zuckerberg has expressed optimism about the lab's future, stating that Meta is building an elite, talent-dense team to push the frontiers of superintelligence research.

References:
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/25/meta-names-shengjia-zhao-as-chief-scientist-of-ai-superintelligence-unit/
[2] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/meta-names-former-openai-researcher-shengjia-zhao-as-chief-scientist-for-superintelligence-lab/articleshow/122913202.cms
[3] https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-names-chatgpt-co-creator-chief-scientist-superintelligence-lab-2025-07-25/
[4] https://www.ainvest.com/news/meta-appoints-chatgpt-creator-head-meta-superintelligence-labs-2507/