Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Friday that former OpenAI researcher Shengjia Zhao will lead research efforts at the company’s new AI unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). Zhao contributed to several of OpenAI’s largest breakthroughs, including ChatGPT, GPT-4, and the company’s first AI reasoning model, o1.

Meta has named one of the early architects of ChatGPT, Shengjia Zhao, as a Chief Scientist of its brand new AI Superintelligence group. Zhao's departure is the latest example of Meta's continued poaching of top AI talent from rival companies as it looks to construct smarter systems and play catch up in the race for artificial general intelligence.

Shengjia Zhao's journey from a Tsinghua University exchange student at Rice to Meta's Superintelligence Lab Chief Scientist exemplifies the power of e