Meta AI is facing one of its biggest challenges in the AI race, ever since its competitors leapfrogged it with much more advanced and capable AI model releases in 2025. Alexandr Wang, the 29-year-old AI wunderkind recruited by Meta Platforms in a multi-billion-dollar deal, is now facing a pivotal ‘make-or-break’ moment as the company races to debut its next-generation AI model.
Wang, who joined Meta after the social media giant acquired a significant stake in his data-labeling firm, Scale AI, for approximately $15 billion, leads Meta’s Superintelligence Labs. His mandate has been clear right from the start — build systems that can compete directly with the industry leaders like OpenAI and Google. Wang has been wanting to deliver on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious vision of building Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) ahead of the competitors.
Meta AI and its ‘Avocado’ AI model launch
The fate of Meta’s latest AI model, reportedly codenamed Avocado, is being widely seen as a test of Wang’s leadership and the wisdom of Meta’s expensive bet. The new model, which insiders suggest is now targeting an early 2026 release, comes amidst intense scrutiny following the reportedly underwhelming performance of a previous model in the ‘Llama’ family — the model that currently powers the Meta AI models.
Wang’s Superintelligence Lab is reportedly engaged in an aggressive internal race, characterised by 70-hour workweeks and a demanding culture, to meet the accelerated timeline. The pressure is magnified by the rapid release of upgraded models from rivals, including Google’s Gemini 3 and OpenAI’s GPT-5. Hence, MSL needs to push its latest and supposedly advanced AI models out into the market to stay relevant in the AI race.
Why is Alexandr Wang crucial to Meta
Wang’s arrival at Meta as its AI chief signals a mega strategic shift for the company that created the social media platform Facebook. For years, the company championed an open-source approach, making its AI models freely available to the developer community. However, reports indicate the Avocado AI model could mark a change by pivoting towards a closed, proprietary system.
It is said that this change is driven by a desire to better protect Meta’s valuable intellectual property and compete with the closed commercial models that have dominated the market. For Wang, many say that the transition from leading an AI data-infrastructure provider (Scale AI) to overseeing the creation of a flagship proprietary AI model for a $1.2 trillion software company represents the greatest challenge of his career.
Meta has pinned its high hopes on Wang’s commitment and hence, raised its 2025 capital expenditure forecast to over $70 billion. For Alexandr Wang, this means the success of Avocado is not merely a product launch. The success of the Avocado model will be crucial for him to justify one of the largest talent and technology acquisitions in the history of Silicon Valley.
