Meta and Apple team up on AI model tailored for Mac computers

{"text":[[{"start":7.28,"text":"Apple and Meta have announced a new “open-weight” AI model designed to run on Mac computers, in a rare example of collaboration between the two fierce rivals."}],[{"start":16.44,"text":"Muse Spark Open, a downloadable version of Meta’s latest AI models, which Meta claims is its most capable “open” model to date, has been optimised to run on Apple’s desktop Mac Studio computers, the companies said on Thursday."}],[{"start":30.02,"text":"It marks the latest effort by the iPhone maker to build partnerships with companies that have more advanced models, after its in-house efforts fell behind, as it looks to AI features to drive demand for its hardware."}],[{"start":42.92,"text":"Apple and Meta have had an acrimonious relationship in the past, clashing over the iPhone maker’s policies for apps running on its devices. Meta has poached AI talent from Apple and unveiled virtual reality glasses to compete with Apple’s Vision Pro."}],[{"start":56.96,"text":"Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday’s breakthrough had come about thanks to working with Apple’s new chief executive John Ternus, who took over in September."}],[{"start":65.8,"text":"Ternus replied that it was “amazing to run a model of Muse Spark Open’s calibre and scale this efficiently, right from your desk”."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":73.08,"text":"Muse Spark Open is designed to assist with coding and run AI “agents” — bots that can carry out complex tasks independently. Meta said it was releasing the technology “with limited commercial terms, which allow many developers to use the model for free”."}],[{"start":87.68,"text":"Zuckerberg and other AI industry leaders such as Nvidia’s Jensen Huang have championed open models that can be downloaded, customised and run on users’ own hardware."}],[{"start":97.12,"text":"In contrast, leading closed models, such as those from Anthropic and OpenAI, are proprietary and cannot be customised in the same way."}],[{"start":105.2,"text":"Meta has also presented its open models as US champions to compete with Chinese rivals such as DeepSeek, although the social media group has also released some closed models."}],[{"start":115.28,"text":"In an X post on Thursday, Meta’s chief AI officer Alexandr Wang posted an American flag emoji as he announced the Apple partnership."}],[{"start":122.76,"text":"Meta is betting on its latest suite of models and Muse personal AI assistant to justify Zuckerberg’s risky bid to invest hundreds of billions into making the social media group an AI leader."}],[{"start":133.4,"text":"Meanwhile, Apple has trumpeted the privacy benefits of running models locally on the powerful chips in its latest hardware, rather than sending personal data to the cloud. It said a cluster of two to four of its Mac Studio computers using its new M5 Ultra chip was powerful enough to run the most advanced models."}],[{"start":150.88,"text":"Earlier this year, Apple’s then-chief executive Tim Cook said two of its desktop computers — the Mac Mini and the Mac Studio — were seeing a surge in demand from consumers looking to run AI models on their devices at home."}],[{"start":163.52,"text":"Apple is seeking to recover from a false start in the AI race. A flagship partnership with OpenAI has devolved into a bitter trade secrets lawsuit. Earlier this year, Apple partnered with Google to use its Gemini models to power a new AI chatbot-style Siri assistant that launched last month."}],[{"start":180.24,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1792109799_7977.mp3"}