Shengjia Zhao is a Chinese scientist and AI researcher. He is best known for his pivotal role in the creation of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Now, Zhao has been offered a role at Meta as the chief scientist of its newly established Superintelligence Labs (MSL). Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news on his social media on 25 July 2025.
We are excited to announce that @shengjia_zhao will be the Chief Scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs!
Shengjia is a brilliant scientist who most recently pioneered a new scaling paradigm in his research. He will lead our scientific direction for our team.
Let’s go 🚀 pic.twitter.com/D93KQWIvFl
— Alexandr Wang (@alexandr_wang) July 25, 2025
Zuckerberg wrote,
Shengjia co-founded the new lab and has been our lead scientist from day one. Now that our recruiting is going well and our team is coming together, we have decided to formalize his leadership role.
Moreover, Zuckerberg praised Zhao for his skill set and experience, writing,
Shengjia has already pioneered several breakthroughs, including a new scaling paradigm, and distinguished himself as a leader in the field. I’m looking forward to working closely with him to advance his scientific vision.
Zhao left OpenAI in recent months before his switch to Meta. In fact, Meta has been pulling talent away from top AI companies like OpenAI and Google since the launch of Meta Superintelligence Labs.
Now, let’s learn about Shengjia Zhao’s personal and professional life details!
Shengjia Zhao Wiki, Age, Nationality
Zhao is 30 years old as of 2025. He was born in 1994.
Zhao’s nationality is Chinese. He has an Asian ethnicity from his parents’ side.
Now a resident of San Francisco, California, Zhao studied at Tsinghua University from September 2012 to June 2016. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from there.
Moreover, Zhao was a semester exchange student at Rice University in 2014.
Zhao then enrolled at Stanford University for his PhD in 2016. He then completed his Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science from Stanford in 2022.
Zhao’s excellence in academics has earned him honors like the ICLR 2022 Outstanding Paper Award, the JP Morgan PhD Fellowship in 2019, and the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship.
Shengjia Zhao Salary and Net Worth
While Meta has reportedly offered compensation packages worth as much as $100 million to $300 million to lure top AI talents, Zhao’s salary in the company should undoubtedly be a huge figure.
Since July 2025, Zhao has joined Meta as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs. He formerly worked at OpenAI as a member of the technical staff from October 2017 to July 2025.
Excited to bring o1-mini to the world with @ren_hongyu @_kevinlu @Eric_Wallace_ and many others. A cheap model that can achieve 70% AIME and 1650 elo on codeforces.https://t.co/z0rrjWVniH
— Shengjia Zhao (@shengjia_zhao) September 12, 2024
Zhao is best known as the co-author of the original ChatGPT research paper. Likewise, he was a key researcher on the first OpenAI reasoning model, o1.
At OpenAI, Zhao helped co-create ChatGPT, GPT-4 and smaller variants like GPT-4.1 and o3.
So far, Zhao’s professional net worth remains confined.
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Is Shengjia Zhao Dating?
Zhao hasn’t revealed his relationship status publicly. There is no information on whether the 30-year-old is dating or leading a single life.
While maintaining privacy, Zhao likes to focus solely on his professional career.