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Shengjia Zhao Joins Meta to Lead Superintelligence Labs
Meta has officially named former OpenAI researcher Shengjia Zhao as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), its new division focused on building advanced AI models. CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement on Threads, confirming that Zhao, who co-founded MSL and has led its research efforts from the beginning, will now take on a formal leadership role.
Zhao’s appointment is a major step in Meta’s plan to compete directly with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic in the race for AI superintelligence. Before joining Meta, Zhao played a major role in developing OpenAI’s most impactful technologies, including ChatGPT, GPT-4, and the company’s first dedicated AI reasoning model known as o1.
Squaredtech sees this move as a direct signal that Meta is getting serious about catching up to and possibly overtaking OpenAI in advanced AI development.
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Meta Builds a New AI Powerhouse
Zhao will define MSL’s research goals under the supervision of Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI. Although Wang doesn’t come from a research background, his business and product experience appears to be balanced by Zhao’s deep technical leadership.
This leadership pairing marks a shift in Meta’s approach to AI: blending business leadership with elite research talent. Zhao’s credibility in the AI community comes from years of work on scaling large models and pioneering reasoning capabilities — both critical in building frontier models.
Meta’s hiring spree for MSL has drawn talent from every major AI lab. In addition to Zhao, the company has added:
- Jiahui Yu, Shuchao Bi, and Hongyu Ren – all formerly from OpenAI
- Trapit Bansal – an AI reasoning researcher who worked directly with Zhao
- Three researchers from OpenAI Zurich – known for their work in multimodal AI
- Experts from Apple, Google DeepMind, Safe Superintelligence, and FAIR
By stacking MSL with veterans from key AI organizations, Meta is clearly aiming to leap ahead in its AI race.
At Squaredtech, we view this as part of a larger trend — a talent war that’s reshaping the AI industry. Meta isn’t just hiring; it’s building a team that can lead in reasoning models and general intelligence — areas OpenAI currently dominates.
Big Tech’s AI Arms Race Heats Up
Zuckerberg has made it clear he’s committed to making Meta a top player in AI. According to reports, the CEO has sent personal invitations to potential recruits, including trips to his Lake Tahoe estate, and has offered massive pay packages — some reportedly in the nine-figure range. These deals often come with “exploding offers” that expire within days.
Why the urgency? AI researchers who can build reasoning models like o1 are scarce — and extremely valuable. OpenAI’s o1 model introduced a new approach to scalable reasoning, and Zhao was a key contributor to that work. Meta has no internal equivalent yet, so Zhao’s expertise is central to developing a competitor.
Zuckerberg mentioned that Zhao had pioneered a “new scaling paradigm,” likely referencing how Zhao and his team trained reasoning models more efficiently. These methods could help Meta build faster, smarter, and cheaper AI systems.
According to Squaredtech analysis, Meta’s strategy seems clear: lock in the talent and technology needed to leapfrog competitors in reasoning-based AI.
Prometheus: Meta’s Giant AI Training Engine
It’s not just talent that Meta is investing in. The company is also scaling up its infrastructure. By 2026, Zhao and his team will have access to Prometheus, a 1-gigawatt cloud computing cluster based in Ohio.
To put it in perspective, 1 gigawatt is enough electricity to power more than 750,000 homes. Meta’s Prometheus will be one of the largest AI training clusters in existence, giving MSL the computational muscle needed to run massive training sessions.
This puts Meta in the same league as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon in terms of AI infrastructure — a crucial edge for building large-scale models.
Squaredtech believes Prometheus will be a defining part of Meta’s ability to compete. With Zhao’s technical direction and computing power on this scale, MSL could close the gap with OpenAI faster than many expect.
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What Comes Next for Meta AI?
With Zhao now leading MSL and Meta already home to Yann LeCun — the chief scientist at its FAIR research lab — the company has two top-level AI scientists in charge of different missions.
- MSL (Meta Superintelligence Labs): Focused on near-term frontier models and reasoning.
- FAIR (Fundamental AI Research): Focused on longer-term research, five to ten years out.
- Meta GenAI Unit: Still operating for more consumer-level AI products.
It’s not yet clear how these three groups will collaborate, but Zhao’s appointment gives MSL a defined role: build the next generation of general-purpose AI models to match or surpass OpenAI’s output.
Meta’s moves align with the broader AI race — where access to top researchers, proprietary models, and massive computing clusters may decide which companies dominate the next decade of AI.
From Squaredtech’s editorial desk, this development sends one message loud and clear: Meta is no longer trying to catch up — it’s trying to take the lead.
Conclusion: Meta’s AI Gambit Is Taking Shape
By naming Shengjia Zhao as chief scientist, Meta has secured one of the most critical minds in AI development. Zhao’s proven success with GPT-4 and o1 makes him a top asset. Backed by Prometheus and a fast-growing team of elite researchers, Meta Superintelligence Labs is quickly becoming one of the most closely watched projects in AI.
For OpenAI, Google, and others in the space, Meta’s move is a serious challenge. And for the AI industry as a whole, it signals that the next generation of models will come from labs where research power, money, and scale collide.
Stay tuned — Squaredtech will continue to track how this AI arms race unfolds.
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