Meta Superintelligence Labs
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Artificial intelligence |
| Founded | June 30, 2025 |
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
Key people | Alexandr Wang (chief AI officer) |
| Parent | Meta Platforms |
Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) is an artificial intelligence firm based in Menlo Park, California. A subsidiary of Meta Platforms, the company was founded to advance research on theoretical superintelligence.
History
[edit]In June 2025, Bloomberg News reported that Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta Platforms, had expressed displeasure at the fourth iteration of Llama, the company's large language model, in April, tasking employees to work overtime. Meta began internally developing Behemoth, a larger model set to be more sophisticated than offerings from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, in response. According to The Wall Street Journal, amid concerns from Meta's leadership over Behemoth's capabilities, the company delayed the release of the model. The decision to delay Behemoth led Zuckerberg to involve himself closely with Meta's artificial intelligence efforts, starting a WhatsApp group chat with senior leadership to recruit researchers. According to Bloomberg News, Zuckerberg set a goal to hire approximately fifty people to staff a firm to achieve artificial general intelligence. That month, he sought to invest several billion dollars into Scale AI and hire its chief executive and founder, Alexandr Wang.[1] In addition, Zuckerberg had personally recruited researchers at his homes in Lake Tahoe and Palo Alto, California;[1] The New York Times later reported that Zuckerberg had offered compensation packages valued between US$1 to US$100 million to employees at OpenAI and Google.[2]
Days later, Meta announced that it was investing US$14.3 billion into Scale AI, an intentionally muted role despite hiring Wang in order to avoid scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission amid an impending decision from judge James Boasberg in FTC v. Meta (2020).[3] According to The Information, Zuckerberg was willing to provide US$5 billion, though Wang countered with US$20 billion.[4] In order to fund the tentative firm, Meta implemented advertisements in WhatsApp.[5] The Information later reported that Meta was discussing hiring Nat Friedman, the former chief executive of GitHub, and the businessman and investor Daniel Gross, and acquiring their venture capital firm, NFDG.[6] According to CNBC, Meta had sought to acquire Safe Superintelligence Inc., but the company was rejected by its founder, Ilya Sutskever.[7] Additionally, Zuckerberg privately discussed acquiring Thinking Machines Lab and Perplexity AI, though the deals fell through over disputes concerning prices and strategy. Days later, The Verge reported that Gross and Friedman would report directly beneath Wang.[8][9] Zuckerberg assumed a dominant role in hiring employees,[10] though his efforts faced complications from researchers who expressed skepticism at Meta's artificial intelligence, uncertainty over internal restructuring, and a perceived strategic conflict with Meta's vice president for artificial intelligence, Yann LeCun.[11] Additionally, several researchers were surprised to receive messages from Zuckerberg, including one person who, believing a message they received to be a hoax, did not respond for several days.[11]
On June 30, Zuckerberg announced that he was establishing Meta Superintelligence Labs with Wang serving as chief AI officer and Friedman leading work on artificial intelligence products. Meta AI, Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research, and several other subsidiaries, including a firm dedicated to "developing the next generation" of Meta's large language models, were placed beneath Meta Superintelligence Labs.[12] In an internal memo, Zuckerberg named eleven employees the company had hired.[13] Zuckerberg's efforts forced other artificial intelligence executives, including Microsoft's Satya Nadella and OpenAI's Sam Altman, to attract researchers themselves.[14] In July, Gross joined Superintelligence Labs as Friedman's counterpart.[15]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Wagner, Kurt; Griffin, Riley (June 9, 2025). "Zuckerberg Is Personally Recruiting New 'Superintelligence' AI Team at Meta". Bloomberg News. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Metz, Cade; Isaac, Mike (June 10, 2025). "Meta Is Creating a New A.I. Lab to Pursue 'Superintelligence'". The New York Times. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Isaac, Mike; Metz, Cade (June 13, 2025). "Meta Invests $14.3 Billion in Scale AI to Kick-Start Superintelligence Lab". The New York Times. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Weinberg, Cory (June 16, 2025). "Meta Agreed to Pay up for Scale AI but Then Wanted More for Its Money". The Information. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Huang, Kalley (June 18, 2025). "Meta's New Way to Pay for AI Investments: WhatsApp Ads". The Information. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Huang, Kalley; Weinberg, Cory (June 18, 2025). "Meta in Talks to Hire AI Investors Friedman and Gross, Partially Buy Out Their Venture Fund". The Information. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Primack, Dan (June 20, 2025). "Meta reportedly plans big new AI hires". Axios. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Gurman, Mark; Roof, Katie; Griffin, Riley (June 20, 2025). "Meta Discussed Buying Perplexity Before Investing in Scale". Bloomberg News. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Heath, Alex (June 20, 2025). "Meta held talks to buy Thinking Machines, Perplexity, and Safe Superintelligence". The Verge. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Murphy, Hannah (June 19, 2025). "How Mark Zuckerberg unleashed his inner brawler". Financial Times. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ a b Bobrowsky, Meghan; Jin, Berber; Cohen, Ben (June 22, 2025). "Zuckerberg Leads AI Recruitment Blitz Armed With $100 Million Pay Packages". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Bobrowsky, Meghan (June 30, 2025). "Mark Zuckerberg Announces New Meta 'Superintelligence Labs' Unit". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Robison, Kylie (June 30, 2025). "Here Is Everyone Mark Zuckerberg Has Hired So Far for Meta's 'Superintelligence' Team". Wired. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Metz, Cade; Isaac, Mike (June 27, 2025). "In Pursuit of Godlike Technology, Mark Zuckerberg Amps Up the A.I. Race". The New York Times. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
- ^ Ghaffary, Shirin; Wagner, Kurt (July 3, 2025). "Meta Adds Startup Founder Gross to New AI Superintelligence Lab". Bloomberg News. Retrieved July 7, 2025.