Apple and Meta collaborate to run Muse Spark Open on Mac Studio systems

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Apple and Meta AI on Mac

Highlights

Apple and Meta announced a collaboration enabling developers to run Meta's 816 billion-parameter Muse Spark Open AI model on 2–4 Mac Studio systems locally.
Local deployment of Muse Spark Open on Mac Studio reduces cloud infrastructure costs, enhances security, and expands practical access to large open-weight AI models.
The partnership signals shifting alliances in AI, with Meta seeking alternatives amid Apple privacy changes and competitive pressure on OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia's data-center dominance.

Mac Studio deployment for large AI workloads

As first reported by CNBC, Apple and Meta unveiled a collaboration on Thursday to help developers run Meta's new open-weight AI model on Apple's high-end desktop computers.

The partnership focuses on Muse Spark Open, which Meta describes as its most capable open-weight model released under a license allowing limited commercial use. The model has 816 billion parameters and uses a mixture-of-experts architecture, enabling developers to download its weights and run it on a range of hardware.

Under the setup, customers can link between two and four Mac Studio systems to use Muse Spark for coding, video analysis and other agentic tasks. The companies said local deployment adds a layer of security and can lower costs by reducing reliance on cloud infrastructure.

AI rivalry shifts and market implications

Thursday's announcement, after months of collaboration, suggests the AI boom is reshaping historical alliances in Silicon Valley. Apple and Meta had long kept each other at arm's length, and tensions worsened after Apple's 2021 privacy changes reduced ad-targeting capabilities for digital advertising companies.

Meta said in early 2022 that those privacy changes would reduce its revenue for that year by $10 billion. Representatives from both companies declined to say whether the Muse Spark Open project marks the beginning of a broader relationship.

Meta AI chief Alexandr Wang said in an interview that many powerful open-weight models are too large to run on most personal computers, but Apple's Mac Studio machines provide enough memory to make local use of Muse Spark Open practical. The move also underscores Meta's renewed AI push and may increase pressure on OpenAI and Anthropic, while pointing to Apple's growing position in AI chips, a market Nvidia has so far dominated through large data center deployments.

We previously reported on the intensifying debate over AI risk management, as governments and leading developers discuss stronger safeguards for rapidly advancing systems. The piece highlighted calls for deeper international coordination — including dialogue involving U.S. and Chinese counterparts and a possible UK role as a neutral venue — to monitor and respond to high-stakes AI incidents.

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