Meta Snaps Up Apple's Robotics AI Chief Jian Zhang

Meta Platforms META just pulled another high-profile hire out of Apple AAPL. Jian Zhang, who led robotics research at Apple and spent a decade at the company, has joined Meta as lead director of its Robotics Studio, Bloomberg reported.

For Meta, it's the latest move in a hiring spree that's reshaping the AI talent map. For Apple, it's another loss in what's becoming a worrying trend. In just the past week, three other members of Apple's Foundation Models Team walked out. John Peebles and Nan Du signed on with OpenAI, while Zhao Meng is heading to Anthropic.

Zhang is at least the seventh Apple AI researcher to jump to Meta since July. Among the big names was Ruoming Pang, who built Apple's AI models team and reportedly left for a $200 million package. Engineers Tom Gunter, Mark Lee, Bowen Zhang and Yun Zhu have also crossed over.

And Frank Chu, who ran Apple's AI infrastructure and training teams, is on his way to Meta's Superintelligence Labs.The stream of departures shows just how fierce the fight for AI talent has become across Silicon Valley.