Zuckerberg Launches 'Superintelligence' Group Meta and Adds More Staff

Mark Zuckerberg, the 41-year-old CEO of Meta, is reorienting the company's AI initiatives to concentrate on superintelligence, or AI that is more intelligent than humans.

Zuckerberg told staff members in a memo published by CNBC in its entirety on Monday that Meta's AI efforts will now be housed in a new organisation known as Meta Superintelligence Labs, or MSL.

The group's leader and new Chief AI Officer will be Alexandr Wang, a 28-year-old former CEO of AI training data startup Scale AI (Meta has a separate Chief AI Scientist, Yann LeCun).

Meta’s Fresh AI Initiative

Zuckerberg described Wang as the “most impressive founder of his generation” in the memo, adding that Wang would “partner” with Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub, to lead the MSL team.

Notably, the current teams at Meta that concentrate on creating AI models and AI products will be included in the new unit. Meta's fundamental AI research (FAIR) team will also be a part of it.

In the memo, Zuckerberg stated, “As the pace of AI progress accelerated, developing superintelligence is coming into sight.” “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.”

Earlier this month, Meta revealed that it would invest $14.3 billion in Scale AI in return for a 49% stake and new employees from the startup, including Wang.

Additionally, Zuckerberg stated that 11 new researchers from rival companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic would join Meta for MSL. Anthropic software engineer Joel Pobar, OpenAI researchers Trapit Bansal and Hongyu Ren, and former Google DeepMind researchers Jack Rae and Pei Sun are on the new team.

“Personal superintelligence for everyone” was Zuckerberg's vision for AI, according to the memo, and the company would begin developing its next generation of AI models to launch “in the next year or so.”

The Aggressive Talent Acquisition Strategy of Meta

Meta's reach is extensive: More than one billion people use the company's AI each month across its apps, such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, according to Zuckerberg's May disclosure.

With plans to spend between $60 billion and $65 billion on AI infrastructure this year alone, the company is also making significant investments in the field.

Furthermore, Meta isn't scared to invest heavily in AI talent. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said earlier this month that Meta was trying to recruit talent by paying many OpenAI researchers “more than that” and “$100 million signing bonuses.”

In a leaked all-hands meeting last week, Andrew Bosworth, CTO at Meta, denied the allegations, claiming Altman was “being dishonest” about the signing bonuses and pay.

“Look, you guys, the market's hot,” Bosworth declared during the presentation. “It's not that hot.” 

With a market valuation of more than $1.8 trillion, Meta is currently the sixth most valuable company in the world.

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