The Meta CEO is reportedly forming an elite team to pursue human-level AI and challenge rival tech giants
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is setting up a secretive ‘superintelligence’ lab as part of a push to lead the race toward human-level artificial intelligence, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
People familiar with the plan told the outlet that Zuckerberg is personally recruiting from a trusted circle of AI researchers and engineers. He’s looking to hire around 50 people, including a new head of AI research, and has rearranged desks at Meta’s Menlo Park headquarters so the team can work close to him, the sources said.
The goal, according to the report, is to help Meta outperform other tech companies in achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) – the idea that machines can match human performance across a wide range of tasks.
The move comes amid internal dissatisfaction over Meta’s latest large language model, Llama 4, which reportedly failed to meet Zuckerberg’s expectations. Sources say he has demanded a top-tier AI product by the end of the year, prompting teams to work long hours to meet the target.
Plans to release Meta’s most powerful model yet, dubbed ‘Behemoth,’ were reportedly also put on hold after company leadership concluded that it did not significantly improve on earlier versions, despite earlier claims that it would surpass offerings from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Zuckerberg’s deeper involvement marks what insiders describe as a return to “founder mode” – a more hands-on approach to decision making. He even created a WhatsApp group called ‘Recruiting Party’ to coordinate talent outreach, the report said.
The new lab is being formed alongside a planned multi-billion-dollar investment in Scale AI, a data infrastructure firm that helps train AI models. Its CEO, Alexandr Wang, is expected to join the team once the deal is finalized. If completed, it would be Meta’s largest external investment to date.
At recruitment meetings, Zuckerberg reportedly pitched Meta’s strong ad revenues as a key advantage, saying the company could fund AI development without outside capital. He also mentioned plans for a massive new data center to support future models.
In a memo to employees earlier this year, Zuckerberg warned that thousands more jobs could be cut in 2025 as part of wider performance-based layoffs. With AI now at the core of his strategy, the superintelligence lab marks a major shift in Meta’s post-layoff direction.
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