Mark Zuckerberg sees 'the beginning of a new era' for humanity in superintelligence
Meta has hired top AI talent and created Meta Superintelligence Labs to lead its next-generation AI efforts.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says humanity is on the cusp of “the beginning of a new era” as he commits the company to building AI superintelligence—systems that can perform tasks as well as or better than humans.
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In an internal memo sent Monday and published by CNBC, Zuckerberg announced the formation of Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), a new group that will house all of Meta’s AI efforts, including its foundational model development, products, and research. The move underscores how central artificial intelligence has become to Meta’s strategy as it competes with OpenAI and Google to build next-generation AI models and assistants.
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“As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight,” Zuckerberg wrote. “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.”
Leading MSL will be Alexandr Wang, founder of data-labeling startup Scale AI, whom Zuckerberg called “the most impressive founder of his generation.” Wang joins Meta as Chief AI Officer following Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI earlier this month. Wang will partner with Nat Friedman, former CEO of GitHub, who will oversee Meta’s AI products and applied research.
The restructured group will also include a star roster of recent hires poached from top AI labs, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic. Among them are Jack Rae, former pre-training tech lead for Google’s Gemini; Shuchao Bi, co-creator of GPT-4o voice mode; and Pei Sun, who built perception models for Waymo before working on Gemini at DeepMind.
Zuckerberg wrote that Meta is committed to pushing forward with its upcoming models Llama 4.1 and 4.2, which already power Meta AI across its apps with over a billion monthly active users. But he added that the company is now starting research on “the next generation of models to get to the frontier in the next year or so.”
The memo comes amid intensifying competition among tech giants for AI talent, with Meta offering signing bonuses reportedly as high as $100 million. Meta technology chief Andrew Bosworth recently told CNBC that OpenAI has been countering its offers, underscoring the “unprecedented” market for AI researchers today.
Zuckerberg said Meta’s scale, resources, and ability to build products used by billions give it a unique advantage in delivering superintelligence to the public.
“I’m optimistic that this new influx of talent and parallel approach to model development will set us up to deliver on the promise of personal superintelligence for everyone,” he wrote.
Whether superintelligence proves to be the beginning of a new era or just the next chapter in tech’s AI arms race, Zuckerberg is betting Meta’s future on being first across the line.