The social media giant has recruited Pang Ruoming, who held the title of distinguished software engineer at Apple and was leading its foundation models team, according to a Bloomberg News report on Tuesday that was confirmed by Meta.
Neither Apple nor Pang immediately responded to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Pang is a veteran AI researcher who spent 15 years at Google before joining Apple in 2021, where he worked on diverse projects, including search and speech recognition, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He earned his doctorate in computer science from Princeton University, following a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in the same field from the University of Southern California and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, respectively.

After Pang’s departure, Apple’s foundation models team will be led by another Chinese engineer, Chen Zhifeng, according to Bloomberg’s report.