Meta Launches Superintelligence Labs Led by Alexandr Wang, Nat Friedman; Hires Talent from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic
Meta launches Superintelligence Labs, poaching top AI minds from rivals to build AGI under leadership of Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman.
In a decisive move to shape the future of artificial general intelligence (AGI), Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced the launch of Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) — a new AI division that brings together Meta’s foundational AI models, product units, and its long-established FAIR (Fundamental AI Research) team. The division will also house a dedicated lab focused on developing the next wave of large language models (LLMs).
At the forefront of this ambitious venture are Alexandr Wang, founder and former CEO of Scale AI, and Nat Friedman, the former GitHub CEO. Wang steps into the newly created position of Chief AI Officer at Meta. In an internal memo accessed by Bloomberg, Zuckerberg described him as “the most impressive founder of his generation.” Meanwhile, Friedman will co-lead the division with a strong focus on product innovation and applied research.
“As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight,” Zuckerberg reportedly told staff. “I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity, and I am fully committed to doing what it takes for Meta to lead the way.”
Sources indicate that Zuckerberg personally led the recruitment effort for MSL, offering competitive compensation and even inviting potential hires to his home. While OpenAI CEO Sam Altman alleged that Meta offered a $100 million signing bonus, Meta’s CTO dismissed this claim.
Meta has invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI, effectively absorbing part of its workforce, including Wang. The tech giant is also actively engaging with AI startups like Perplexity AI, Runway, and is reportedly close to acquiring PlayAI, a niche player in voice replication technology.
The creation of MSL sent ripples across the AI ecosystem, particularly because of Meta's high-profile hires from its biggest rivals. According to Bloomberg and Wired, Meta brought on board 11 leading AI researchers, including:
- Trapit Bansal (co-creator of OpenAI’s o-series models)
- Shuchao Bi (key contributor to GPT-4o’s voice and multimodal systems)
- Huiwen Chang (known for work on image generation at Google Research)
- Ji Lin (developed reasoning modules for GPT-4)
- Joel Pobar (returns to Meta from a stint at Anthropic)
- Jack Rae, Johan Schalkwyk, and Pei Sun (all from Google)
- Hongyu Ren, Jiahui Yu, and Shengjia Zhao (all from OpenAI)
The initiative marks Zuckerberg’s deepening commitment to AGI, placing Meta squarely in competition with Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI, and Anthropic in the global AI arms race. Notably, earlier this year Microsoft acquired most of Inflection AI's team for $650 million, and Amazon onboarded senior researchers from Adept.
With Meta Superintelligence Labs now live, the industry watches closely as Zuckerberg doubles down on his vision to position Meta at the forefront of artificial intelligence’s next frontier.
