Chief engineer and manager of Apple's foundational model team, **Ruoming Pang**, will leave to join Meta, according to sources cited by Bloomberg. Ruoming Pang was responsible for overseeing the development of Apple's large language models, which support core AI features on Apple devices such as Genmoji, email summaries, and priority notifications.
Ruoming Pang joined Apple in 2021 from Alphabet (Google's parent company). He will now join Meta's newly established "Super Intelligence Division," which focuses on advanced artificial intelligence systems. According to reports, Meta offered him a compensation package worth tens of millions of dollars per year to attract this top talent.
Apple's Foundation Model Team Faces Multiple Pressures
Ruoming Pang's departure is the most significant leadership change in Apple's AI department since the launch of the "Apple Intelligence" initiative. He once led a team of about 100 engineers, and he first opened his model to external developers in June of this year.
Within Apple, the foundation model team is facing increasing pressure. The company's leadership is considering introducing external models from OpenAI or Anthropic into the new version of Siri, an action that undoubtedly affected team morale. According to Bloomberg, several team members have already planned to move to Meta or other companies. Last month, **Tom Gunter**, a close colleague of Ruoming Pang, also left Apple.
Meta Continues to Recruit Top AI Talent
Notably, Ruoming Pang is not the only talent Meta has recruited from the field of artificial intelligence in recent weeks. Meta has recently hired several well-known AI experts, including Alexandr Wang, Daniel Gross, Nat Friedman from Scale AI, **Yuanzhi Li** from OpenAI, and Anton Bakhtin from Anthropic. Bloomberg revealed that Meta had already hired several researchers from OpenAI last month.
With Ruoming Pang's departure, **Zifei Chen** will take over Apple's Foundation Model Team (AFM). The previous flat organizational structure, where multiple engineers reported directly to Ruoming Pang, will be replaced by a multi-tiered management structure.
This loss of talent undoubtedly brings new challenges to Apple's independent development in the field of artificial intelligence and further highlights the intensity of the global competition for AI talent.