Meta has appointed Shengjia Zhao, one of the co-creators of ChatGPT and GPT-4, as chief scientist of its recently launched Superintelligence Lab. The announcement was made by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a Threads post.
“In this role, Shengjia will set the research agenda and scientific direction for our new lab working directly with me and Alex,” Zuckerberg wrote, referring to Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang. Wang joined Meta from startup Scale AI after the company took a significant stake in it.
Zhao previously worked as a research scientist at OpenAI, where he contributed to several major projects, including GPT-4 and its iterations such as version 4.1 and the compact o3 model. He is one of several researchers who have recently left OpenAI to join Meta, reflecting a growing battle for AI talent across Silicon Valley.
The hiring spree comes amid Meta’s efforts to bounce back from the lukewarm reception of its Llama 4 model. To accelerate its AI development, Meta has begun offering highly competitive compensation packages and striking deals with startups to recruit leading researchers.
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