European AI specialists: from Google to Apple
According to a report, Apple has set up a "secret European AI lab" in Zurich. Language models and other products are to be developed there.
(Bild: metamorworks/Shutterstock.com)
Apple is expanding in Europe when it comes to AI: According to a report in the Financial Times, the iPhone manufacturer is said to have poached "dozens" of artificial intelligence experts from Google to set up a "secret European AI lab" with them in the Swiss metropolis of Zurich. This was revealed by an analysis of LinkedIn profiles. According to this, the development and expansion has been taking place in Switzerland for several years. The focus is on Apple's Head of AI John Giannandrea, who himself joined from Google in 2018.
From facial recognition to voice models
The research lab is said to have initially focused on the areas of image recognition and virtual reality, starting with the start-ups FaceShift and Fashwell. This then led to the founding of a "Vision Lab", the FT quotes an ETH professor. According to the report, employees from Zurich are said to have been involved in Apple's research into basic AI technology, including new multimodal models for text and images. Apple has published numerous papers on the subject in recent months.
Apple is currently advertising new positions in the areas of generative AI for two locations in Zurich. One of the offices is not even known to neighboring companies. However, the tactic of Apple not communicating its locations to the outside world is not new - for example, research on vehicles is said to have been carried out in Berlin for a long time without Apple making a public appearance.
Well-known ex-Googlers at Apple
After Giannandrea's arrival, Apple was able to recruit a number of well-known names in the AI sector. Apple's top AI team is now made up of former key figures from the internet giant, writes the FT, including Samy Bengio, senior director of AI research and machine learning, who was formerly one of Google's leading AI scientists.
Ruoming Pang, who heads up the "Foundation Models" team at Apple, which works on large language models, was previously head of AI speech recognition research at Google. However, there were also departures. Deep learning pioneer Ian Goodfellow left Apple and returned to Google because Apple had changed its home office policy.
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