Meta Inc., a Facebook and Instagram-owned company, is to lay off over 600 employees from its artificial intelligence (AI) unit as the company looks to streamline its operations and reduce organisational layers, according to Reuters. Meta's chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, announced the layoff in a memo.
Wang joined Meta's AI division in June this year as part of its USD 14.3 billion investment in the Scale AI sector. The AI teams, the Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit (FAIR), and other AI-related product roles will be affected by the cutoff.
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TBD Labs employees, which houses many of Meta's high-profile AI recruits, those who are working on different types of models which was recently brought in this year, will not be impacted due to these layoffs. The FAIR and product-focused teams are competing for computing resources.
The newly formed Superintelligence Labs, created with Wang’s leadership, inherited this oversized AI structure. The layoffs are designed to reduce redundancy and solidify Wang’s influence over Meta’s AI strategy.
Facebook-owned technology companies are focusing on the AI business to compete with its rivals like OpenAI and Google. The company has already invested a billion dollars into building AI infrastructure and recruiting top talent. Following the layoffs, the workforce at Superintelligence Labs is now just under 3,000 employees.