Top scientists are joining AI labs as ByteDance opens 100 slots for frontier science
机器之心 · wechat · 2026-07-26
AI labs are racing to hire scientists as frontier research moves into the lab
The piece argues that AI progress is shifting from benchmark chasing to long-horizon scientific work, and that top labs now see domain scientists as core talent, not just outside collaborators.
- Jacob Tsimerman, a Fields Medalist, said he is moving into AI safety research and will soon join OpenAI’s safety team.
- OpenAI research chief Mark Chen publicly welcomed him, underscoring how top researchers increasingly view frontier AI labs as the place to pursue their ambitions.
- Anthropic has reportedly hired or brought in multiple scientists and scholars this year, including Nobel Prize-winning chemist John Jumper, economist Chad Jones, and philosopher Harvey Lederman.
- In China, ByteDance’s SeedEdge team launched the Seed STEM Scientist Program, opening 100 collaboration slots for mathematicians, physicists, chemists, biologists, and PhD students to work on basic science problems with Seed.
- The article frames this as a broader industry turn: AI labs are building residency/fellowship-style programs to absorb non-AI experts, while scientific research itself becomes a benchmark for future model capability.
- It also highlights how teams like OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and ByteDance are investing in evaluation frameworks, scientific collaboration, and long-horizon research as the next scaling path.
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