It looks like Meta’s hiring freeze definitely does not apply to Apple engineers.As reported by , Jian Zhang, Apple’s Lead AI Researcher for Robotics, will be joining the Meta Robotics Studio.And he’s not the only one leaving.
Here are the details.Apple’s AI alternatives (and teams) keep getting slimmer Last month, following a report that said that, despite Meta’s hiring freeze, there could be exceptions, reported that the company had poached Frank Chu, “who has led Apple AI teams focused on cloud infrastructure, training and search.” Now, the tally just got a bit higher, as reported that Meta has also hired away Jian Zhang, Apple’s Lead AI Researcher for Robotics: Zhang’s departure coincides with Apple’s reported loss of three more Foundation Models engineers: John Peebles and Nan Du to OpenAI, and Zhao Meng to Anthropic.Here’s on the new departures: The news comes on the heels of another report that said that “Apple is now discussing internally whether to rely more on outside technology, rather than just homegrown models.” Apple is also still considering a splashy acquisition (with names like Mistral and Perplexity in the mix) while it also explores partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic, and even Google to develop the models needed for the revamped, AI-driven Siri it unveiled at WWDC24 but never brought to market.
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