Zuckerberg Hires Top Apple Exec to Join his New AI Superintelligence Unit

• Zuckerberg recruits Apple's AI-models head Ruoming Pang to Meta Superintelligence Lab unit credited with disrupting OpenAI for a week.
• Meta's AI talent acquisition spree includes Ruoming Pang, backed by multi-million-dollar offers to outcompete rivals.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook and Instagram's parent company Meta, appears to be still looking for talent for his new artificial intelligence unit. According to Bloomberg, Ruoming Pang, Apple's head of AI models, will leave the company to work at Meta. This is the latest high-ranking AI executive that Mark Zuckerberg has recruited to join his new AI superintelligence unit. With this, the Apple executive joins a long list of talent Zuckerberg has acquired in recent months, including leaders from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and Safe Superintelligence.

Pang is said to be a key member of Apple's internal team that trained the AI foundation models that are said to power Apple Intelligence and other on-device AI features. Pang is said to have expertise in designing small, on-device AI models for Meta. According to Bloomberg, Ruoming Pang's departure could be just the beginning for Apple's troubled AI unit.

Meta's aggressive hiring strategy for AI talent

Meta Platforms is reportedly racing to hire top AI talent for its newly formed Superintelligence Labs in order to compete with rivals such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. The Facebook and Instagram parent company's aggressive hiring for its unified AI initiative has fueled Silicon Valley's talent war.

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Who replaces Ruoming Pang at Apple?

Following Pang's departure, the AFM team will reportedly be led by Zhifeng Chen. According to the report, instead of a structure under Pang in which most engineers reported directly to him, a new organizational layout will be implemented, with multiple managers reporting to Chen, who will then report to engineers. Apple's overall AI strategy is now primarily led by Craig Federighi, Apple's head of software engineering, and Mike Rockwell, who co-created the Apple Vision Pro headset and now leads Siri engineering.