A former research scientist at Meta Platforms, Tian Yuandong, has shed some light on the US social media giant’s restructuring of its artificial intelligence team, while casting doubt on traditional scaling laws used in AI model development.

In an interview on the Chinese video channel Silicon Valley 101 broadcast on Wednesday, Tian – previously research scientist director at Meta FAIR, the Facebook parent’s legacy Fundamental AI Research team – said limited computing resources had triggered internal conflicts inside the group, as large language models (LLMs) became a major focus of AI development around the world.

Tian’s assessment appeared to substantiate why Meta – which also owns Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads – let go of around 600 employees from its AI research unit, months after the company revamped its strategy through the acquisition of data-annotation firm Scale AI and a poaching spree from rival AI laboratories. Meta confirmed the lay-offs, which included Tian, last month.

While Tian’s interview was conducted late last month, its broadcast coincided with a report by The Financial Times that Meta’s chief AI scientist and FAIR founder, Yann LeCun, was leaving the Menlo Park, California-based company amid internal tensions.

LeCun, who became a Turing Award laureate in 2018 for his work on deep learning, planned to depart to launch his own start-up, according to the report.

Meta’s restructuring kept the newly formed Super Intelligence Lab – led by the firm’s new Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, formerly CEO and the founder of Scale AI – largely untouched, which signalled not only a change of strategy but also increased competition for resources inside the company.