Zuckerberg launches new division to develop artificial superintelligence and plans to invest "hundreds of billions of dollars"

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced a major reorganization of the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) development and the creation of a new division, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). According to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg, Zuckerberg has appointed Alexander Wang, former CEO of Scale AI, to lead MSL as Chief AI Officer.

Zuckerberg said he plans to invest "hundreds of billions of dollars" in AI research and infrastructure in the coming years. The unit will be co-chaired by Nat Friedman, former CEO of GitHub, who will be responsible for product development and applied research alongside Wang.

"As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight," Zuckerberg wrote to employees. "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."

MSL will bring together Meta's large language model teams, the AI product team, and the Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) group. It will also create a separate lab for "next-generation models."

The new Meta Superintelligence Labs division comes as a result of fierce competition from Google’s OpenAI and DeepMind. Earlier this month, Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI and brought Wang in. The company is also in talks to partner with and buy startups Perplexity AI, Runway AI, and possibly PlayAI to expand its AI capabilities.

As part of MSL, Zuckerberg announced 11 key hires from industry leaders. New hires include former DeepMind researchers Jack Ri and Pei Sun; former OpenAI employees Jiahui Yu, Shuchao Bi, Shengjia Zhao, and Hongyu Ren; and Anthropic engineer Joel Pobar, who previously worked at Meta for more than a decade.

Zuckerberg is convinced that developing superintelligence is a strategic investment decision: "The downside of being behind is that you’re out of position for, like, the most important technology for the next 10 to 15 years."