Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) has hired Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) former lead artificial intelligence researcher for robotics, as the social media giant continues to stockpile AI talent, according to Bloomberg.
Researcher Jian Zhang had worked at Apple for a decade, including most recently as the head of robotics research at the Cupertino-based company. He is now the lead director of Meta Robotics Studio.
The news doesn’t only signal Meta’s trend of acquiring top-tier AI talent, but also Apple’s growing trend of losing AI talent. Other Apple employees leaving over the past week include John Peebles, Nan Du and Zhao Meng, according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the issue. They were all members of the Apple Foundation Models Team. OpenAI has hired Peebles and Du, while Zhao will join Anthropic.
Zhang becomes at least the seventh Apple AI expert to move to Meta since July, following notable departures including Ruoming Pang, who created Apple’s AI models team and left for a $200M package. AI engineers Tom Gunter, Mark Lee, Bowen Zhang and Yun Zhu all quit for Meta as well. Also, Frank Chu, who led Apple AI teams for cloud infrastructure, training, and search, will join Meta’s Superintelligence Labs to work on AI infrastructure.