Apple and Meta end years of rivalry with major AI deal

Apple and Meta have spent years on opposite sides of a public fight. Now, the two tech giants are working together on artificial intelligence. Their deal brings Meta’s Muse Spark Open model to high end Macs. The move marks a change for firms that clashed over privacy.

A surprising deal between Apple and Meta

As reported by CNBC, Apple and Meta are joining forces as the AI race grows. Meta’s new model, Muse Spark Open, is built to run on powerful Mac Studio computers. They worked to make it run on Apple hardware. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg thanked Apple chief John Ternus for the work. Ternus also praised the model’s ability to run on the machines. Their exchange set a warmer tone.

Meta AI chief Alexandr Wang said former Apple executive Daniel Gross helped bring the companies together. Gross now works at Meta. Wang said he played a major role in helping both sides work well together. The teams had been working on the project for months. The deal does not end their competition. They still sell different products and want to shape computing. But shared goals can matter more than old disputes.

What can Meta’s Muse model for Apple do?

Muse Spark Open has 816 billion parameters and uses a mixture of experts design. Meta calls it its most capable open-weight model made in the United States so far. It is aimed at tasks such as coding, complex reasoning and video analysis. The model can run across two or four connected Mac Studios. These machines use Apple’s M5 Ultra chips, while Apple’s MLX framework helps split the model across them.

The setup needs at least one terabyte of combined memory. That means buyers may need to spend more than $40,000 on Mac hardware. For some developers, the cost could still make sense if it replaces costly cloud computing. Meta says the model is free to download from sites such as Hugging Face. Its licence allows commercial use, with some limits. Developers can use it for coding, research, app work and demanding tasks.

A long history of tension

Apple and Meta have not always worked together. Their public clash grew after the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018. Apple’s then chief Tim Cook criticised Facebook’s handling of user data. Zuckerberg later called Cook’s comments glib. The dispute grew again in 2021, when Apple added privacy tools that let users limit app tracking. Meta said the changes hurt its business and warned that they could cost billions.

This new project does not erase those problems. It is a practical deal focused on AI software and Mac hardware. Still, it may open the door to more work between the companies as AI tools become part of everyday computing. For Apple, the partnership gives Mac users access to a large model that can run locally. For Meta, it offers a way to bring its AI to more developers and powerful computers. Both firms gain something, while keeping their wider rivalry alive.

Author’s Opinion

The deal is a useful step for both firms. But it does not mean their old disputes are over. The real test will be how well the model works for users and developers, and whether the high hardware cost makes it worth using.

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