Shengjia Zhao has played an important role at OpenAI and contributed to the development of famous GPT versions. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that Zhao is co-founder and direct leader and research director for Meta Superintelligence Labs - a unit established in June 2025.
The new lab operates independently of Meta's FAIR department and focuses on developing general artificial intelligence (AGI). Zhao will work with Alexandr Wang - Meta's AI Director, under the direct management of Zuckerberg.
The move is part of Meta's huge recruitment strategy to recruit personnel from OpenAI, DeepMind, Anthropic, ... with a reported salary of up to tens of millions of USD. Meta affirmed that it is ready to invest on a huge scale to pursue the super-AI race, including a capital contribution of nearly 50% to data company Scale AI.
Zuckerberg has said Meta will invest hundreds of billions of dollars in AI in the near future. Attracting leading experts like Zhao is considered the key to realizing the ambition of building a more humane AI model of this technology company.
