Ruoming Pang leaves Apple where he led the foundation models team and joins Meta’s new superintelligence group with a package worth millions per year. His move underscores the intense competition among tech giants to secure top AI talent and it comes as Apple faces pressure to improve its AI offerings.
Who Is Ruoming Pang
Pang joined Apple in 2021 after a stint at Alphabet where he worked on core AI research. At Apple he managed about one hundred engineers who built large language models and on device AI features such as email summaries and Genmoji.
What Meta Is Offering
Meta wooed Pang with an offer of tens of millions of dollars each year to lead its superintelligence division. The package reflects Meta’s willingness to invest heavily in AI by matching or exceeding rival pay scales and by providing a leadership role in its strategic AI lab.
Impact on Apple Intelligence
Apple has hinted it may use third party AI models for its next Siri update due to delays in its own initiatives. Pang’s departure is the most significant loss in Apple’s AI ranks since the company announced its Apple Intelligence platform and it may slow the company’s push to integrate its in house models.
The Broader AI Talent Battle
Meta has also hired executives of OpenAI Anthropic and Scale AI as it plays to win the AI-arms race. Led by the CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company reorganized its teams in June and is set to allocate tens of billions to infrastructure this year alone.
The aggressive talent acquisition by Meta emphasizes the extent of priority the sector puts on the knowledge of AI as the sector shifts to more powerful systems. The hiring of Pang by Meta can define the next phase of AI development and mark the beginning of a new stage of the competition among the largest technology companies in the world.