According to reports, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has designated Shengjia Zhao — a prominent contributor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT — as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs, the firm's newly established AI department.

The announcement emerges during Meta’s strong drive into artificial intelligence, which includes a multibillion-dollar talent acquisition effort and a $14 billion investment in Scale AI.

Zhao's name was initially mentioned in a June memo outlining key AI recruits, but Zuckerberg specified on Friday that Zhao co-founded Meta's new AI lab and has been guiding its scientific direction from the outset. Zhao will now collaborate directly with Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, the ex-Scale AI CEO who currently holds the position of chief AI officer at Meta.

Zhao’s qualifications are noteworthy. Along with co-developing ChatGPT, he played a role in OpenAI’s creation of GPT-4, GPT-4.1, and the lighter o3 models. He also directed OpenAI's synthetic data studies — an essential element for effectively training large language models.

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“Shengjia has achieved multiple breakthroughs, such as a novel scaling paradigm, and has established himself as a leader in the industry,” Zuckerberg stated in a social media update. “I am eager to collaborate closely with him to promote his scientific vision.”

I am extremely thrilled to assume the position as chief scientist at Meta superintelligence labs. Excited to develop ASI and align it to enable individuals with this incredible team here. "Let’s get building!," Zhao stated in a post on Threads.

Meta Superintelligence Labs will focus on the Llama series of open-source AI models, foundational model research, and various long-term AI projects. The unit aims to concentrate not only on products but also on essential AI research intended to advance the limits of general intelligence.

Zuckerberg has mentioned that Meta intends to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in computing infrastructure throughout the next ten years to back these initiatives.

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Under Zhao’s guidance and Meta’s significant dedication to AI, the company is evidently setting itself up to rival OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic in the pursuit of superintelligence.