Apple Hired Dozens of AI Experts From Google for a Secretive Zurich Research Lab
Apple has poached dozens of artificial intelligence experts from Google and created a "secretive European laboratory" in Zurich to house a new team of staff tasked with building new AI models and products, according to a paywalled Financial Times report.
Based on an analysis of LinkedIn profiles conducted by FT, Apple has recruited at least 36 specialists from Google since 2018, when it poached John Giannandrea to be its top AI executive.
Apple's main AI team works out of California and Seattle, but the company has recently expanded offices dedicated to AI work in Zurich, Switzerland. Apple's acquisition of local AI startups FaceShift (VR) and Fashwell (image recognition) is believed to have influenced its decision to build a secretive research lab known as "Vision Lab" in the city.
According to the report, employees based in the lab have been involved in Apple's research into the underlying technology that powers OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot and similar products based on large language models (LLMs). The focus has been on designing more advanced AI models that incorporate text and visual inputs to produce responses to queries.
