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Mark Zuckerberg's 44-member AI dream team: Just two Indians make the cut for Superintelligence
Meta's recruitment for its Superintelligence AI team continues, with Mark Lee and Tom Gunter, both former Apple AI researchers, joining the team.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the construction of several large-scale AI data centers.
Meta has intensified its recruitment efforts for the recently established Superintelligence Team, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg directly involved in securing top AI talent. The expanding team now includes Trapit Bansal and Hammad Syed, two researchers of Indian origin. Meta is among several technology companies making substantial investments and offering multi-million-dollar compensation to accelerate the development of advanced AI.
Meta recently launched the Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) to consolidate its AI initiatives, following challenges with its Llama 4 model and staff departures. The MSL will be led by Alexandr Wang, former CEO of Scale AI, and Nat Friedman, former chief of GitHub. This development follows Meta's $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI and a push to attract leading AI professionals.
Key Indian Researchers Join Meta's AI Push
Trapit Bansal, an alumnus of IIT Kanpur, is one of two Indian researchers to join the new Meta lab. Bansal's background includes postgraduate research at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and a previous tenure at Meta in 2018. His career also spans roles at OpenAI, Microsoft Research, Google Research, and Facebook.
Hammad Syed joined Meta this week following the acquisition of his company, PlayAI. Syed co-founded the voice startup in 2021 with Mahmoud Felfel. PlayAI develops text-to-speech models and voice agents in over 30 languages. An internal memo indicated that the "entire PlayAI team" would transition to Meta.
Apple AI Researchers Move to Meta
Meta's recruitment for its Superintelligence AI team continues, with Mark Lee and Tom Gunter, both former Apple AI researchers, joining the team. Their departure from Apple follows that of Ruoming Pang, who previously led Apple's AI models team and was recruited with a compensation package exceeding $200 million. Reports indicate Lee and Gunter collaborated closely with Pang at Apple. Lee has reportedly commenced work at Meta, while Gunter is slated to join soon.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the construction of several large-scale AI data centers.
SPOTLIGHT
The Storyboard18 Digital Entertainment Summit (DES) unpacked India's strategy for leading the digital entertainment economy, with top policymakers where they putlined how talent, technology, and governance would fuel future-ready growth.
Read MoreIn Photos: At DES 2025, India charts ambitious course for digital entertainment leadership
At the Storyboard18 Digital Entertainment Summit in New Delhi, policymakers and industry leaders outlined how talent, technology, and governance will drive India’s push to dominate the global entertainment economy.