South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics is consolidating its artificial intelligence research operations in North America; the firm plans to integrate two of its AI research laboratories. The company has recently declared the establishment of a new division known as the North American AI Centre. This merges the teams in Toronto, Canada, and Mountain View, California, and should help to increase organizational effectiveness.
Samsung appoints an ex-Apple employee for its AI business
Samsung has also brought in the former Apple executive Murat Akbacak to head the new division according to Bloomberg. Leading the operation will be Murat Akbacak who has been working for Apple and was reportedly heading the Siri strategy department that dealt with personalization, context, and developments in conversation, and multimodal AI assistants. As if this isn’t funny enough, Samsung, which has been poking fun at Apple’s AI capabilities, has recently employed an Apple Siri expert as the head of AI. The Korean firm has recently hired Murat Akbacak, the former head of Siri’s contextual and conversational artificial intelligence unit. Akbacak will head up Samsung’s new AI research division that has been recently created. The North America AI Center is a centralized group formed by uniting its current AI teams in Toronto and Mountain View, California.
Akbacak also served at Apple where he helped develop the Siri strategy in terms of personalisation and contextualisation. He also played an important role in the several advancements Apple made in their own conversational and multimodal AI. Samsung’s gambit comes at a time when Apple has made some significant strides in expanding its AI capabilities, as it previewed at WWDC this year.
Toronto stands out as a hotbed for both AI research and talent, with technologies developed in Canada being credited for their significant parts in numerous technologies such as facial recognition, photo, and voice recognition.