Apple taps Israeli chip veteran to lead new AI push after leadership change in Israel
Rony Friedman will lead Chip-AI, a global initiative focused on using artificial intelligence to design chips, as Tal Inbar takes charge of Apple’s Israeli R&D center.
Apple’s local R&D center is undergoing a leadership transition: Rony Friedman, who has led Apple Israel’s research and development operations for the past nine years, is stepping down from the role to lead a new global group within the company called Chip-AI, which will use artificial intelligence models to help design future chips. Tal Inbar will replace him as head of Apple Israel’s R&D center.
Inbar joined Apple following the company’s acquisition of Israeli flash memory startup Anobit in 2012. Since then, he has led the development of several generations of storage controllers, the Apple Watch’s system-on-chip (SoC), and Apple’s Pro, Max and Ultra versions of its M-series chips, which power many of the company’s Mac computers.
In his most recent role, Inbar led the development of Apple’s SoC technology for its data centers. Alongside his appointment as head of Apple Israel’s R&D center, Inbar will continue overseeing the storage and SoC engineering groups at the center. Like Friedman, he will report to Sri Santhanam, Apple’s vice president of the Silicon Engineering Group.
Friedman has headed Apple’s Israeli R&D operations for nearly a decade, transforming the center into one of the company’s most important global chip development hubs. During his tenure, Apple Israel contributed to the development and deployment of six generations of Apple silicon chips for the Mac, helped design the company’s first dedicated processors for data centers, and developed storage technologies used across Apple’s product portfolio.
“The contribution of the Israel center to Apple is almost always multidisciplinary, both in software and hardware, and is reflected in almost all of Apple’s products,” Friedman said earlier this year at Calcalist’s Tech TLV conference. “We are involved in a wide range of areas.”
Friedman said Apple’s Israeli teams have contributed to the company’s M-series processors, which power products including the MacBook Pro and other high-end Macs. The center’s engineers have also worked on camera technologies, including regular and depth cameras, contributing to capabilities such as Face ID and low-light photography.
Over the years, Apple’s Israeli teams have increasingly incorporated machine learning capabilities into hardware development, contributing to products such as Vision Pro through technologies related to hand and eye tracking and object recognition.
“It is hard to find an Apple product that does not have some kind of Israeli touch,” Friedman said. “There has also been Israeli involvement in AirPods for years, both in hardware and software. Recently, features such as heart-rate monitoring in the headphones and capabilities that help people with mild-to-moderate hearing loss have been added, and that is something we are very proud of.”
Last year, Friedman helped establish Chip-AI, an initiative aimed at helping Apple’s chip design teams integrate AI models into their workflows. Following the success of the initiative, Friedman will now focus entirely on leading the global effort. He will continue reporting directly to Santhanam.
