Mark Zuckerberg Recruits Shengjia Zhao, Key Openai, to Team AI Meta

META Strategies in Attracting World Class AI Experts

META continues to strengthen its position as one of the companies that competes closely in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. One of the strategic steps taken is by recruiting AI experts from competing companies, including from OpenAI. With this effort, META wants to build a research team capable of producing major innovations in the world of AI.

Several important figures from OpenAI have now joined Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), a research unit that focuses on developing advanced AI technology. One of the newest names included in the MSL team is Shengjia Zhao, an AI scientist who is known as the main character in the construction of AI reasoning models such as ChatGPT and GPT-4. He is also one of the designers of the O1 model, which is the basis for many AI developments in various companies.

The official announcement of Zhao’s arrival was made by Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, through his social media account. In his post, Zuck expressed his enthusiasm for Zhao’s contribution as Chief Scientist in MSL. He explained that Zhao had been a part of the lab since its inception. This announcement marks the official joining of Zhao in the MSL research team.

AI team recruitment from other companies

Not only Zhao, Meta is also active in recruiting researchers from other companies. Several names that previously worked at OpenAI, such as Jahui Yu, Shuchao Bi, Hongyu Ren, and Trapit Bansal, also joined MSL. In addition, three AI experts from the OpenAI office in Zurich were also transferred to a meta laboratory. They were previously involved in multimodality projects being developed by OpenAI.

Apart from OpenAI, META has also recruited several AI experts from well-known companies such as Google DeepMind, Safe Superintelligence, Apple, and Anthropic. This effort demonstrates META’s commitment to building a solid and superior research team in the field of AI.

Competitive Offer for Researchers

To attract top AI experts, META does not hesitate to give a very interesting offer. In addition to a fantastic salary, META also offers a compensation package of eight to nine digits. This offer is referred to as “Exploding Offer”, which is an offer that only applies in a short time, showing how serious meta ambitions are in attracting quality talent.

In addition, Zuck even contacted the candidates via private email and invited them to his residence in Lake Tahoe. This personal approach shows that META really appreciates the expertise and contribution of the researchers.

Investment in cloud infrastructure

In addition to recruiting talent, META also focuses on developing large cloud computing infrastructure. The project aims to support the advanced AI model training required by MSL. Currently, META is building Promotheus, a 1 Gigawatt cloud computing cluster that will be located in Ohio, USA. The project is targeted for completion by 2026 and is expected to be one of the largest AI training clusters in the world.

With sufficient energy capacity to power over 750,000 homes, Promotheus is believed to be able to help META conduct massive training to create the AI Frontier model.

Two AI Chief Scientists in Meta

After Zhao’s merger, Meta now has two AI chief scientists. One of them is Yann Lecun, who leads Fair (Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research). This unit focuses on long-term research in AI technology, with a development target for the next five to ten years.

Meanwhile, Zhao will be in charge of research in MSL. Although there is no detailed information about the cooperation between the two units, the existence of these two world-class AI scientists shows that META is ready to compete with OpenAI and Google in the struggle for the leading position in the world of AI technology.