In a bold move to reshape the AI landscape, Meta has launched Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), bringing together its foundation models, product units, and long-established FAIR (Fundamental AI Research) team under a unified vision for advanced AI development.
The elite unit is headed by Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang, who joins as Meta's Chief AI Officer, with former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman co-leading the division with a focus on product innovation and applied research. This restructuring places all of Meta's AI teams under the MSL umbrella, with both leaders reporting directly to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The company has assembled an impressive roster of AI talent, recruiting at least 11 researchers from competitors including Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Notable hires include former DeepMind researchers Jack Rae and Pei Sun, multiple OpenAI engineers such as Jiahui Yu and Shengjia Zhao, and Anthropic's Joel Pobar. To secure this talent, Meta has reportedly offered some researchers eight- and nine-figure compensation packages, with some offers structured as 'exploding offers' that expire within days.
During a recent earnings call, Zuckerberg revealed that MSL is focused on building AI models capable of self-improvement—learning from themselves with minimal human intervention. He distinguished Meta's approach from competitors, stating, "This is distinct from others in the industry who believe superintelligence should be directed centrally towards automating all valuable work, and then humanity will live on a dole of its output."
The creation of MSL comes amid Meta's aggressive AI push, which included a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI earlier this month and the restructuring of its AI efforts under the new superintelligence unit. The company has revised its capital expenditure forecast to $69 billion for the year, with plans to spend up to $65 billion on AI infrastructure alone.
In an internal memo, Zuckerberg described Wang as "the most impressive founder of his generation" with "a clear sense of the historic importance of superintelligence." The new lab will also house a dedicated team focused on developing the next generation of large language models. With MSL, Meta is putting serious resources behind its ambition to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI)—AI systems that can reason, learn, and perform any intellectual task a human can.