Shengjia Zhao is an AI researcher and one of the co-creators of ChatGPT. He is the Chief Scientist of Meta's Superintelligence Lab (MSL), contributing to the development of the Llama models and advancing fundamental research in artificial intelligence. ^{[3] [5]}​

Education

Zhao graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University in 2016. He then pursued his PhD in Computer Science at Stanford University, graduating in 2022. ^[4]

Career

Shengjia Zhao worked as a member of technical staff at OpenAI, where he was a foundational contributor to major AI models, including ChatGPT and GPT-4. He was also a foundational contributor to o1, OpenAI's first AI reasoning model, where he pioneered a new scaling paradigm. He also led the synthetic data efforts at OpenAI. ^[5]​

In 2024, Zhao co-founded Meta's new Superintelligence Labs (MSL) and served as its lead scientist from its inception. He was formally named Chief Scientist on July 25, 2025. As one of two Chief AI Scientists at Meta, alongside Yann LeCun, Zhao sets the research agenda for MSL and reports to its head, Alexandr Wang. His work focuses on advancing fundamental research, including for AI reasoning models, and contributing to the Llama model series and next-generation AI systems. ^{[1] [5]}​

Superintelligence Labs (MSL)

​Superintelligence Labs (MSL) is a division within Meta, launched in June 2024, to unify and accelerate the company’s artificial intelligence initiatives, particularly in pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI). Led by Alexander Wang and Nat Friedman, MSL brings together teams working on foundation models, applied AI products, and core research from FAIR. The unit was formed alongside a major talent acquisition campaign, hiring researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepMind, and follows Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI. MSL oversees the development of Meta’s Llama model series and next-generation AI systems, including AI reasoning models, with a focus on long-term advancements and integration across Meta’s consumer platforms. ^{[1] [2] [5]}​