Meta has appointed the co-creator of ChatGPT and former research scientist at OpenAI, Shengjia Zhao, as Chief Scientist of its newly established Superintelligence Lab, as part of its aggressive push into cutting-edge artificial intelligence.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement Friday via Threads, revealing that Zhao will define the research agenda and scientific direction of the lab, working closely with him and Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang—a recent hire from Scale AI.

Zhao is credited with co-developing key AI models including ChatGPT, GPT-4, and OpenAI’s mini-models like GPT-4.1 and o3. His move to Meta marks another high-profile departure from OpenAI and is seen as a significant win for Meta in Silicon Valley’s ongoing AI talent war.

“Shengjia will help shape the future of superintelligence research at Meta,” Zuckerberg said. “He’s joining at a crucial time as we accelerate toward building artificial general intelligence.”

The Superintelligence Lab, launched earlier this year, aims to consolidate Meta’s work on its Llama language models and long-term ambitions around artificial general intelligence. The lab operates independently from FAIR, Meta’s long-standing AI research unit led by deep learning pioneer Yann LeCun.

Zhao is also listed as a co-founder of the Superintelligence Lab, underlining his central role in Meta’s evolving AI roadmap.

The appointment reflects Meta’s broader strategy of aggressively recruiting top AI researchers with lucrative compensation packages and equity deals, especially after mixed reviews of its Llama 4 model.

Zuckerberg has repeatedly stated that Meta’s goal is to develop “full general intelligence” and make its work open source—a move that has drawn both praise for transparency and criticism over potential risks.
The hire reinforces Meta’s ambitions to challenge rivals like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind in the race to dominate the next generation of AI.