Zuckerberg bets big on AI with new Meta 'superintelligence' lab

NEW YORK, June 14: Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has unveiled plans for a new artificial intelligence research lab dedicated to developing 'superintelligence'— a term denoting a level of machine intelligence surpassing human capabilities.
The lab, announced Thursday, is backed by a $14.3 billion investment and will be led by Alexandr Wang, CEO and co-founder of Scale AI, who joins Meta under a new partnership deal. The initiative marks a strategic shift for Meta as CEO Mark Zuckerberg reorganizes company priorities to stay competitive in Silicon Valley's accelerating AI race.
To staff the lab, Meta is reportedly offering lucrative compensation packages, with some reaching up to $100 million, in an effort to recruit top AI researchers.
While companies like OpenAI and Google are focused on building Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)—a system capable of performing any intellectual task a human can do—superintelligence refers to an even more advanced machine intelligence. Though the term lacks a universally agreed-upon definition, it broadly signals a machine more intelligent than the human brain.
Several tech leaders, including OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei, have claimed AGI is just around the corner. However, there remains no concrete evidence of its imminent arrival, and measuring machine intelligence remains highly subjective.
Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever recently co-founded a company called Safe Superintelligence. Unlike Meta's effort, Sutskever's startup aims to develop superintelligence privately and only release it once it's deemed fully safe.
Despite optimism, skepticism persists. A recent study by Apple and Arizona State University showed that newer AI systems could actually decrease in accuracy when solving multi-step problems—a sign that progress may be plateauing. 'These are great tools,' said Arizona State AI professor Subbarao Kambhampati, 'but we're nowhere near AGI or superintelligence.'
Meta has a long history in AI development and was quick to respond to the release of ChatGPT by launching its own chatbot, Meta AI. The company also contributed to industry momentum by open-sourcing key AI models, in contrast to rivals who kept their most advanced systems private.
However, Meta's recent large language model, Llama 4, failed to meet expectations and fell short of the performance seen from competitors like OpenAI and Google. Internal challenges, including talent retention and management instability, further motivated the creation of the new lab.
With the superintelligence lab, Meta hopes to reclaim its standing in the AI landscape by attracting world-class researchers with ambitious goals and significant funding. But experts warn the term 'superintelligence' may be more of a marketing strategy than a concrete technical goal.
'These terms have become a commercial thing, a branding thing, an advertising thing, rather than a technical thing,' said Dr. Kambhampati.
As the global AI race intensifies, Meta's gamble on superintelligence underscores both the promise and uncertainty of the road ahead.

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