Mark Zuckerberg added another big name to Meta Platforms ’ new “Superintelligence” AI division, hiring a top Apple AI researcher as part of a weekslong recruitment push, according to a person familiar with the hire.
Ruoming Pang is the first big name from Apple to jump over to Meta’s Superintelligence Lab, a blow to the iPhone maker, which is working to improve its own AI products. Pang, who led Apple’s foundation model team, is set to receive a pay package from Meta in the tens of millions of dollars, said the person. Bloomberg earlier reported the hire from Apple. Zuckerberg has fueled an arms race for AI talent, making a string of expensive hires to staff up the new Meta unit as it seeks to regain momentum in AI. Last week Zuckerberg announced 11 hires for the new lab, including researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic.
Meta is offering huge pay packages—$100 million for some—to attract talent to the unit, which is led by former Scale Chief Executive Alexandr Wang after Meta made an investment in his company valuing it at $29 billion. The Facebook and Instagram parent released the latest versions of its Llama model in April to little fanfare, and later delayed the launch of another bigger version of the model, prompting internal concerns about the direction of its AI efforts. The win for Meta is another loss for Apple, which has failed to deliver promised AI upgrades for its products and services.

Full report : Apple Loses Top AI Models Executive to Meta’s AI Talent Hiring Spree.