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Trapit Bansal, a researcher of Indian descent, has departed from OpenAI to take a position in Meta's newly formed superintelligence division. He announced his transition on Tuesday via a post on X, expressing his enthusiasm by stating, "Excited to be joining Meta! The goal of superintelligence is now within reach." Sources referring to comments from OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman indicate that Bansal is one of the prominent hires attracted by Meta’s offer of a signing bonus worth 100 million dollars. A graduate from IIT Kanpur, Bansal began his career at OpenAI in 2022, where he played a key role in advancing their efforts in reinforcement learning and initial AI reasoning frameworks. TechCrunch highlighted him as “a highly influential OpenAI researcher.”

Who is Trapit Bansal?

Trapit Bansal is a specialist in artificial intelligence with a solid foundation in mathematics, statistics, and computer science. His research focuses on areas such as natural language processing, deep learning, and meta-learning. He obtained his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Statistics from IIT Kanpur and went on to receive a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he later completed a PhD in the same field. During his academic tenure, he gained experience through research internships at notable institutions including IISc Bengaluru, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.

In 2017, he interned at OpenAI for four months while pursuing his degree. After these experiences, his inaugural full-time position was at OpenAI, starting as a Member of Technical Staff in January 2022. At OpenAI, he collaborated with co-founder Ilya Sutskever on research centered around reinforcement learning and reasoning. His LinkedIn profile suggests that he was a co-creator of a model referred to as “01,” but further information has not been disclosed. Recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman alleged that Meta has been enticing top AI talent from OpenAI with 100 million dollar compensation packages. In contrast, Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth characterized these accusations as “dishonest,” asserting that Altman exaggerated the situation and that not all recruits were offered such lavish incentives, a claim which Bosworth refuted.