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Meta Launches ‘Superintelligence Labs’ to Revive AI Strategy Amid Fierce Competition

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Meta is restructuring its artificial intelligence efforts under a new division called Meta Superintelligence Labs, in a bid to regain lost ground in the global AI race. According to a source familiar with the matter, the new unit will be headed by Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of data-labeling firm Scale AI, who now takes on the role of Chief AI Officer at Meta.

The move comes as Meta grapples with senior staff exits and underwhelming reception to its latest open-source model Llama 4, developments that have left rivals such as Google, OpenAI, and China’s DeepSeek in stronger positions. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly hopes the new lab will fast-track progress toward artificial general intelligence (AGI)—a long-term ambition to build machines that can surpass human intelligence.

In recent weeks, Zuckerberg has taken personal control of AI recruiting, targeting high-profile names with aggressive offers, including attempts to lure OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever’s new startup Safe Superintelligence (SSI). Offers reportedly reached $1 million per candidate via direct WhatsApp outreach.

The shakeup includes Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI earlier this month. In addition to Wang, the Superintelligence Labs will include SSI co-founder and CEO Daniel Gross, while former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman will co-lead the division, focusing on applied AI products.

Meta has also attracted talent from top AI firms, hiring at least 11 new AI researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind. Notable names include Jack Rae and Pei Sun (DeepMind), Jiahui Yu, Shuchao Bi, Shengjia Zhao, and Hongyu Ren (OpenAI), as well as Joel Pobar (Anthropic), who had previously spent over a decade at Meta.

Earlier this month, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta had offered some of his staff $100 million bonuses to switch companies.

Despite the hiring blitz, some analysts are skeptical of Meta’s AGI strategy. They point to the company’s Reality Labs unit, which has burned over $60 billion since 2020 with few commercial wins, outside of Ray-Ban smart glasses and Quest headsets.

The broader tech sector is expected to spend $320 billion on AI development this year. Other firms are also making bold moves: Microsoft spent $650 million acquiring most of Inflection AI’s team, and Amazon has poached key personnel from Adept.

Still, the path to AGI remains uncertain. Meta’s own Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun has publicly said that current methods are inadequate to reach true AGI. Meanwhile, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son believes the breakthrough is within 10 years.

Anthropic CEO Criticizes Proposed 10-Year Ban on State AI Regulation as ‘Too Blunt’

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Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, argued in a New York Times opinion piece that a Republican proposal to block states from regulating artificial intelligence for 10 years is an overly blunt approach. Instead, he called for a coordinated federal effort by the White House and Congress to establish transparency standards for AI companies.

Amodei warned that a decade-long moratorium on state regulations would leave a regulatory gap with “no ability for states to act, and no national policy as a backstop,” especially given how rapidly AI technology is advancing.

The proposed ban, included in former President Donald Trump’s tax cut bill, seeks to preempt recent AI laws passed in several states. However, it has faced pushback from a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general who support state-level oversight of high-risk AI applications.

Amodei recommended a federal transparency standard requiring AI developers to implement rigorous testing and evaluation policies, disclose risk mitigation plans, and publicly share how they ensure the safety of their models before release.

He noted that Anthropic, supported by Amazon, already publishes such transparency reports, and competitors like OpenAI and Google DeepMind have adopted similar practices. Amodei suggested that legislation might be necessary to maintain transparency as AI models grow more powerful and corporate incentives to disclose risks may wane.

AI Labs Wage Bidding War for Elite Researchers as Talent Becomes Key Battleground

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The race to lead the artificial intelligence revolution is no longer just about compute power or datasets — it’s now centered on securing a small pool of elite AI researchers who can make or break the next generation of AI models. Companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Elon Musk’s xAI are aggressively courting this highly specialized talent, offering compensation packages in the tens of millions of dollars, luxury perks, and personal outreach from tech luminaries.

The explosive growth of generative AI following the 2022 release of ChatGPT has pushed the battle for talent to unprecedented levels, with some researchers receiving “professional athlete-style” incentives, including private jets, multimillion-dollar bonuses, and equity grants of over $20 million.

“The AI labs approach hiring like a game of chess,” said Ariel Herbert-Voss, a former OpenAI researcher. “They are like, do I have enough rooks? Enough knights?”

Elite Talent, Outsized Impact

Known internally as “ICs” (individual contributors), these researchers are seen as 10,000x engineers — a reference to the idea that in AI, the very best aren’t just 10 times better than average but can be 10,000 times more impactful, due to the leverage their innovations bring to large-scale model performance.

While the exact number of such talent is debated, industry insiders estimate there are only a few dozen to a thousand globally. With such scarcity, top labs are deploying every tool available to secure and retain them.

Top Offers and Retention Battles

  • OpenAI researchers have reportedly been offered retention bonuses of up to $2 million, plus equity increases exceeding $20 million, just to stay for one more year.

  • Google DeepMind has offered top researchers $20 million per year, while reducing vesting schedules on stock options to just 3 years, down from the typical 4.

  • Eleven Labs and SSI (founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever) have made competitive offers to lure away OpenAI talent, prompting preemptive counteroffers.

The bidding war has gotten so intense that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman famously tweeted in 2023 about the need for “10,000x researchers,” acknowledging their disproportionate value.

“It was actually financially not the best option that I had,” said Noam Brown, an OpenAI researcher recruited by several top labs, explaining that research resources and alignment with goals were more important to him than pure compensation.

Rising Stars and Strategic Hiring

To identify and cultivate new talent, data firms like Zeki Data have started using sports-style recruitment analytics, akin to the “Moneyball” approach, to discover undervalued researchers. Some companies, like Anthropic, have been recruiting heavily from theoretical physics and quantum computing backgrounds.

Meanwhile, Mira Murati, OpenAI’s former CTO, has poached over 20 employees for her still-stealth-mode startup, which is reportedly closing a record-breaking seed round based solely on its team strength.

The Bigger Picture

This frenzied battle for researchers is reshaping the AI landscape in Silicon Valley and beyond. With venture capital surging into early-stage AI startups — sometimes before they even launch a product — and top labs competing over a few hundred minds, the next major AI breakthrough may hinge less on hardware or scale and more on who can assemble the right intellectual firepower.