Meta Taps OpenAI Co-Founder Shengjia Zhao as Chief Scientist for AI Lab

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has named Shengjia Zhao, co-creator of OpenAI's ChatGPT, as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs. Zhao will work directly with Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, to advance breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. Meta Superintelligence Labs will focus on foundation models, products, and Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research projects, with an investment of "hundreds of billions of dollars" into AI compute infrastructure.

Meta Platforms Inc. has appointed Shengjia Zhao, a prominent AI researcher known for his work on OpenAI's ChatGPT, as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs. Zhao, who joined Meta in June, will work directly with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang to drive advancements in artificial intelligence [1].

Zhao's appointment follows Meta's aggressive recruitment of AI talent, with over a dozen former OpenAI employees joining the company's AI unit in the past two months. He is a co-author of the original ChatGPT research paper and was a key researcher on OpenAI's first reasoning model, o1 [1].

Meta Superintelligence Labs will focus on foundation models, products, and fundamental AI research projects, with a substantial investment in AI compute infrastructure. Zuckerberg has pledged to spend "hundreds of billions" on AI infrastructure, including a Manhattan-sized data center [2].

Meta's push into AI is part of its broader strategy to capture a larger share of the estimated $1 trillion advertising market. The company aims to automate advertising processes, from strategy to jingle creation, using AI chatbots [2].

Meta's AI offensive has been a key focus for investors, with the stock performing well despite a recent pullback. Zuckerberg's vision for AI automation could drive more of the advertising process onto Meta's platform, potentially increasing the company's share of the digital ad market [2].

References:
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-25/meta-says-open-ai-hire-is-superintelligence-group-chief-scientist
[2] https://www.investors.com/news/technology/meta-stock-ai-advertising-mark-zuckerberg-genai-facebook/