Artificial Intelligence

Meta Names Shengjia Zhao to its AI Superintelligence Lab

Meta appoints ChatGPT co-creator Shengjia Zhao as Chief Scientist of its new Superintelligence Lab, signaling a bold move toward artificial general intelligence

leonard 4 min read · 1 year ago

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Menlo Park, July 25–26, 2025 — Meta Platforms has officially appointed Shengjia Zhao, a former lead scientist at OpenAI and one of the co‑creators of ChatGPT, as Chief Scientist of its newly launched Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). Zhao’s role places him at the heart of Meta’s bold initiative to develop AI systems that rival or surpass human-level intelligence.

A Central Figure in an Escalating AI Talent War

Meta’s decision to recruit Shengjia Zhao signals an escalation in the fierce competition for elite AI talent, particularly with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind. Zhao joined Meta after a period at OpenAI where he significantly contributed to the development of GPT‑4, GPT‑4.1, and lightweight mini models such as o3, and led the organization’s synthetic data research efforts.

In announcing Zhao’s appointment on Threads, CEO Mark Zuckerberg described him as a “pioneer” who would shape the lab’s research agenda and scientific direction, working closely alongside Alexandr Wang, Meta’s Chief AI Officer (formerly CEO of Scale AI). According to Zuckerberg, Zhao has been fundamentally involved since the lab’s inception and is now formally recognized as a co‑founder of MSL.