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Meta recruits leading OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal for AI reasoning lab
Meta has onboarded a prominent OpenAI researcher, Trapit Bansal, to work on advanced aritificial intelligence (AI) reasoning models within its recently established AI superintelligence team, according to a report by TechCrunch.
Trapit Bansal had been with OpenAI since 2022 and played a major role in launching the company's reinforcement learning research, working closely with co-founder Ilya Sutskever. He is named as one of the original contributors to OpenAI's first AI reasoning model, known as o1.
His LinkedIn profile indicates that he left OpenAI in June. OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood confirmed to TechCrunch that Bansal had indeed exited the organisation.
Boost to Meta's AI superintelligence team
Bansal is expected to significantly strengthen Meta's new AI superintelligence group, which already includes notable figures such as former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. The team is also in discussions to bring in former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Safe Superintelligence co-founder Daniel Gross.
His expertise could help Meta develop a cutting-edge AI reasoning model to compete with leading offerings like OpenAI's o3 and DeepSeek's R1. At present, Meta does not have a publicly available AI reasoning model.
Zuckerberg's high-profile hiring strategy
In recent months, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has aggressively recruited top AI talent, reportedly offering compensation packages as high as $100 million. While Bansal's offer remains undisclosed, his decision to join indicates the success of Zuckerberg's strategy in attracting leading AI researchers.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Bansal will join other recent hires from OpenAI — Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai — at Meta. The team also includes Jack Rae, formerly of Google DeepMind, and Johan Schalkwyk, previously with startup Sesame, according to a Bloomberg report.
Attempts to acquire AI startups fell through
In a bid to expand its AI capabilities further, Meta also explored acquiring startups known for their AI research, including Safe Superintelligence (co-founded by Sutskever), Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Labs, and Perplexity. However, none of these talks reached a final agreement.
On a recent podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman commented on Meta's recruitment attempts, stating, 'None of our best people have decided to take him up on that.'
AI reasoning a critical focus for Meta
Developing powerful AI reasoning models is essential for Meta's new unit. Over the past year, firms such as OpenAI, Google, and DeepSeek have released high-performing models that can tackle complex tasks by reasoning through problems before producing answers.
This approach, which makes use of additional computation time and resources, has led to improved performance both in benchmarks and in real-world applications.
Future ambitions for Meta's AI lab
Meta's AI superintelligence group is expected to become a crucial part of its wider operations, similar to the role DeepMind plays within Google. The company has plans to develop AI agents for enterprise use, led by Clara Shih, the former Salesforce CEO of AI.
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