In an unprecedented move in Silicon Valley, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is offering jaw-dropping compensation packages, reportedly ranging from Rs 800 crore to Rs 1,600 crore, to recruit top AI researchers for its newly launched Superintelligence Lab (MSL). These offers are aimed at attracting the world’s best talent from firms like Apple, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic. Among the standout packages is the rumoured Rs 1,600 crore ($200 million) offer extended to Ruoming Pang, an ex-Apple AI researcher. Pang’s reported move to Meta follows another major acquisition Trapit Bansal, a former OpenAI researcher, was offered a similar Rs 800 crore ($100 million) compensation package to join the lab.
While Meta has not officially confirmed the exact figures, the scale of these offers, which include salaries, signing bonuses, stock grants, and long-term vesting, is comparable to, or even surpasses, the compensation of CEOs of major global banks. These strategic hires are aimed at accelerating Meta’s pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) a system capable of human-like reasoning and learning.
Meta’s aggressive talent acquisition strategy has already seen the company onboard at least 11 leading AI researchers from top firms, including Lucas Beyer, Xiaohua Zhai, and Jack Rae from Google, alongside multiple researchers from OpenAI such as Ji Lin, Shengjia Zhao, and Jiahui Yu. These hires are designed to drive Meta’s Superintelligence Lab’s push into next-generation AI technologies and AGI development.
Beyond talent acquisition, Zuckerberg has committed to building a robust AI infrastructure, including the development of a massive AI data supercluster named Prometheus, set to launch by 2026. The company is also constructing multi-gigawatt AI clusters, including Hyperion, which will scale up to 5 gigawatts in the coming years. As part of its efforts to speed up AI deployment, Meta is even setting up temporary data centers in tents, echoing Elon Musk’s "tent factory" strategy during the Tesla Model 3 production rush. These makeshift facilities, equipped with prefabricated cooling modules, aim to bring AI models online more rapidly.
Zuckerberg’s ambitious push into AI comes after the company faced challenges with its Llama 4 AI model earlier this year. Despite the less-than-expected response, Meta is now redoubling its efforts, including a $14 billion investment into Scale AI for high-quality training data and a continued hiring spree with multi-million-dollar offers. With this ambitious strategy, Meta is determined to lead the global AI race.
