Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Friday that former OpenAI researcher Shengjia Zhao will lead research efforts at the company’s new AI unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). Zhao contributed to several of OpenAI’s largest breakthroughs, including ChatGPT, GPT-4, and the company’s first AI reasoning model, o1.

Zhao, previously a research scientist at OpenAI, played a pivotal role in creating GPT-4 and various lighter models such as version 4.1 and o3. He is among at least eight researchers who have recently transitioned from OpenAI to Meta.

Shengjia Zhao — formerly of OpenAI — will be chief scientist at Meta's new Superintelligence Lab, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Threads on Friday. Why it matters: The company is spending billions of dollars to hire key employees as it looks to jumpstart its effort and compete with Google,