Meta Names ChatGPT Co-Creator Shengjia Zhao as Chief Scientist of Superintelligence Lab

Meta Platforms has appointed Shengjia Zhao, co-creator of ChatGPT, as chief scientist of its Superintelligence Lab, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated on Friday, as the corporate accelerates its push into superior AI.

“In this role, Shengjia will set the research agenda and scientific direction for our new lab working directly with me and Alex,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Threads publish, referring to Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who Zuckerberg employed from startup Scale AI when Meta took an enormous stake in it.

Zhao, a former analysis scientist at OpenAI, co-created ChatGPT, GPT-4 and a number of other of OpenAI’s mini fashions, together with 4.1 and o3.

He is amongst a number of researchers who’ve moved from OpenAI to Meta in current weeks, a part of a broader expertise arms race as Zuckerberg aggressively hires from rivals to shut the hole in superior AI. Meta has been providing a few of Silicon Valley’s most profitable pay packages and putting startup offers to draw high researchers, a method that follows the underwhelming efficiency of its Llama 4 mannequin.

Meta launched the Superintelligence Lab lately to consolidate work on its Llama fashions and lengthy‑time period synthetic common intelligence ambitions. Zhao is a co-founder of the lab, in accordance with the Threads publish, which operates individually from FAIR, Meta’s established AI analysis division led by deep studying pioneer Yann LeCun.

Zuckerberg has stated Meta goals to construct “full general intelligence” and launch its work as open supply — a method that has drawn each reward and concern throughout the AI group.

© Thomson Reuters 2025