Meta wants to win the global AI race, and to do so it has pulled an ace up its sleeve: the creation of Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) , a new division that will focus all its efforts on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI), a type of AI with cognitive capabilities comparable to those of humans. The decision, revealed by Mark Zuckerberg in an internal note, marks a strategic shift that redefines the company’s identity. AI will not just be one more area within Meta, but the very core of its future mission.
No leader has been assigned to this new superbrain division, but all indications are that Alexandr Wang , the 28-year-old founder of Scale AI , will be one of the most pivotal figures. Meta recently acquired a 49% stake in Scale AI for $14.3 billion (around €12.4 billion), securing not only the technology but also the talent of Wang and his team.
Wang, the son of scientists and raised in New Mexico, founded Scale AI to address a hidden but fundamental need: the collection, classification, and labeling of data that feeds AI models. “AI comes down to three pillars: compute, data, and algorithms,” Wang explained. “The compute is driven by NVIDIA, the algorithms come from the labs, but the data is provided by Scale.”
The MSL team will also incorporate elite researchers from rival companies such as OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and DeepMind . They include Hongyu Ren, Jiahui Yu, Shengjia Zhao, Trapit Bansal, Shuchao Bi, Huiwen Chang and Ji Lin . This massive influx of talent has been interpreted as a direct challenge to OpenAI , whose CEO, Sam Altman , accused Meta of offering signing bonuses of up to $100 million per person.
The rest of the names that complete this unstoppable team are Joel Pobar, Jack Rae, Hongyu Ren, Johan Schalkwyk, Pei Sun, Jiahui Yu, Shengjia Zhao and Nat Friedman .
Zuckerberg has invested heavily in this initiative . Some of the lab’s new members will receive compensation packages of up to $300 million over four years, including more than $100 million in the first year alone . With these record-breaking salaries, Meta aims to position itself as the leading player in the global race for the most advanced AI, surpassing even giants like OpenAI and Google.
The launch of MSL represents one of the most ambitious moves in the so-called «talent war» in artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg doesn’t just want to improve chatbots or virtual assistants, but rather build the world’s most powerful AI systems . Backed by an elite workforce and billions of dollars in investment, Meta seeks to lead the next major technological transformation: the era of superintelligence .
