Indian Talent in Focus as Meta Assembles Elite 44-Member Superintelligence AI Team

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Meta Platforms, Inc. is making a significant push into advanced artificial intelligence, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally spearheading the recruitment of a new, elite 44-member Superintelligence AI team. This highly specialized group, assembled as of Saturday, July 19, 2025, is tasked with developing AI systems that could potentially surpass human intelligence. Notably, only two Indian-origin researchers have made the cut for this exclusive team, highlighting the intense global competition for top-tier AI talent.

The formation of the Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) comes as part of a broader company restructuring aimed at unifying Meta’s AI efforts and accelerating its progress in a fiercely competitive landscape. The team is co-led by Alexandr Wang, former CEO of Scale AI and now Meta’s Chief AI Officer, alongside Nat Friedman, former GitHub CEO. Zuckerberg has made it clear that AI is Meta’s top priority, and the company is offering unprecedented compensation packages to attract the best minds in the field.

Among the 44 selected members, the two Indian-origin researchers are Trapit Bansal and Hammad Syed. Trapit Bansal, an alumnus of IIT Kanpur, recently joined Meta after a significant stint at OpenAI, where he was a principal engineer known for his work on advanced AI models, including the O1 reasoning model. His impressive resume also includes research positions at Microsoft Research and Google Research, showcasing his diverse experience across major AI institutions.

Hammad Syed, the second Indian-origin member, joined Meta following the acquisition of his voice AI startup, PlayAI. Founded by Syed and Mahmoud Felfel in 2021, PlayAI specializes in building lifelike text-to-speech models and voice agents across more than 30 languages. The entire PlayAI team is reportedly integrating into Meta’s new superintelligence unit.

This concentrated effort by Meta is aimed at creating “superintelligence,” a concept that goes beyond Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) by seeking AI systems capable of outperforming the human brain in speed, reasoning, memory, and adaptability. The goal is to deliver “personal superintelligence to everyone in the world,” and to tackle complex global problems in areas like medicine, science, and the economy.

The composition of the 44-member team underscores the global nature of the AI talent hunt, with significant recruitment from rival firms like OpenAI and Google DeepMind. While India has a burgeoning talent pool in technology and AI, the limited representation on Meta’s most elite AI team highlights the highly specialized nature of this cutting-edge research and the intense global competition for the world’s leading experts in this transformative field. The contributions of Bansal and Syed will be closely watched as Meta continues its ambitious pursuit of advanced AI capabilities.