Apple has poached dozens of artificial intelligence experts from Google and has created a secretive European laboratory in Zurich, as the tech giant builds a team to battle rivals in developing new AI models and products.
According to a Financial Times analysis of hundreds of LinkedIn profiles as well as public job postings and research papers, the $2.7 trillion company has undertaken a hiring spree over recent years to expand its global AI and machine learning team.
The iPhone maker has particularly targeted workers from Google, attracting at least 36 specialists from its rival since it poached John Giannandrea to be its top AI executive in 2018.
While the majority of Apple’s AI team work from offices in California and Seattle, the tech group has also expanded a significant outpost in Zurich.
Professor Luc Van Gool from Swiss university ETH Zurich said Apple’s acquisitions of two local AI startups—virtual reality group FaceShift and image recognition company Fashwell—led Apple to build a research laboratory, known as its “Vision Lab,” in the city.
Zurich-based employees have been involved in Apple’s research into the underlying technology that powers products such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. Their papers have focused on ever more advanced AI models that incorporate text and visual inputs to produce responses to queries.
The company has been advertising jobs in generative AI across two locations in Zurich, one of which has a particularly low profile. A neighbor told the FT they were not even aware of the office’s existence. Apple did not respond to requests to comment.
Apple has been typically tight-lipped about its AI plans even as big tech rivals Microsoft, Google, and Amazon tout multibillion-dollar investments in cutting-edge technology.
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