Soumith Chintala, VIT Graduate, Named CTO of Thinking Machines Lab
Soumith Chintala has been appointed as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Thinking Machines Lab, a company co-founded by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati. This transition follows the resignation of Barret Zoph from the CTO position, with Chintala stepping into the role after joining the company in November. Murati praised Chintala as a “brilliant and seasoned leader” with over a decade of significant contributions to the field of artificial intelligence.
Who is Soumith Chintala?
Soumith Chintala is a prominent computer scientist of Indian origin, widely recognized for his role as the co-creator and long-time leader of PyTorch, a leading deep-learning framework. He spent a significant portion of his career at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, where he held various positions, ultimately resigning as a Vice President in November 2025. Following his 11-year tenure at Meta, Chintala joined Thinking Machines Lab as a member of the technical staff, where he has now been elevated to the position of CTO. His early work at Meta was pivotal in the development of PyTorch, which has become a cornerstone of modern AI research and development globally.
Early Life and Education
Born and raised in Hyderabad, India, Soumith Chintala attended Hyderabad Public School. Despite facing challenges in mathematics during his early education, he cultivated a strong interest in computers and problem-solving. This passion led him to pursue a degree in technology. Chintala earned a B.Tech in Information Technology from Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) in Tamil Nadu. After completing his undergraduate studies in 2009, he moved to the United States to further his education. He obtained a Master’s degree in Computer Science from New York University, where he conducted deep learning research under the guidance of renowned AI scientist Yann LeCun.
Career in the US
After graduating from NYU in 2012, Chintala faced numerous job rejections, including from DeepMind. His first position was as a test engineer at Amazon. However, with support from his PhD mentor, he eventually secured a role at a small startup called MuseAmi. During this time, he developed one of the fastest AI inference engines for mobile phones, yet still faced rejection from DeepMind. Chintala reached out to Yann LeCun again, and due to his contributions to open-source projects like Torch7, he was invited to join Facebook AI Research (FAIR). His tenure at FAIR was marked by success, where he led a small team and co-created PyTorch. From 2014 to 2025, Chintala held senior technical and leadership roles at Meta, culminating in titles such as Distinguished Engineer and Vice President.
Observer Voice is the one stop site for National, International news, Sports, Editor’s Choice, Art/culture contents, Quotes and much more. We also cover historical contents. Historical contents includes World History, Indian History, and what happened today. The website also covers Entertainment across the India and World.
