Apple, Meta End Fight to Launch Muse AI on Macs

Apple and Meta are working together to bring one of the most powerful U.S.-developed open-weight AI models to high-end Macs, marking an unusual collaboration between two companies that have spent years clashing over privacy and the future of computing.

Meta is releasing Muse Spark Open, an open-weight model similar to Muse Spark 1.3 with 816 billion parameters.

Meta says it is the most powerful U.S.-developed open-weight AI model currently available.

Model Runs Locally on M5 Ultra Macs

As part of the launch, Meta worked with Apple to make Muse Spark Open run locally across two or four connected Mac Studios powered by Apple’s M5 Ultra chips.

The setup uses Apple’s MLX framework.

The demonstration shows that very large AI models can run locally on Apple hardware instead of relying entirely on cloud infrastructure or Nvidia-based systems.

Meta will make the model available as a free download under a license that allows commercial use. It will also be offered through cloud providers and developer tools.

Meta Says Apple Partnership Took Months

Meta AI chief Alexandr Wang told Axios that the two companies had been working together for several months.

He said former Apple executive Daniel Gross, who now works at Meta, played an important role in bringing the companies together.

Referring to the long-running rivalry between Apple and Meta, Wang joked that he was happy to see “mommy and daddy” playing nicely again.

Apple and Meta Have Clashed for Years

Apple and Meta have repeatedly disagreed over privacy, advertising, and their competing technology strategies.

In 2018, during Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, Apple executive chairman Tim Cook criticized Facebook’s approach to privacy, prompting Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to call his comments “extremely glib.”

The dispute intensified in 2021 after Apple introduced privacy protections that affected Facebook’s advertising business.

Despite those differences, the companies now see value in working together around local AI.

Local AI Avoids Meta Data Access

Because Muse Spark Open runs locally on the Mac, Meta does not receive users’ prompts or information about how developers use the model.

Wang said Meta has “no control or visibility” into that activity.

That setup helps avoid some of the privacy concerns that have historically divided Apple and Meta.

Open-Weight AI Competition Is Growing

Meta is joining several other Western AI companies releasing increasingly powerful open-weight models.

Nvidia recently released updated Nemotron models, while Reflection AI and France-based Mistral have also introduced new open-weight systems.

These models are designed to give companies more control over their AI infrastructure and reduce dependence on proprietary models or Chinese AI ecosystems.

They could also give businesses more alternatives to Nvidia GPUs and cloud-based AI services.

AI Race Is Reshaping Tech Alliances

The Apple-Meta partnership is part of a broader shift in which longtime competitors are increasingly working together around AI.

Anthropic is leasing computing capacity from Elon Musk’s SpaceX despite competing with his AI company, while Microsoft has invested in Anthropic and integrated Claude models even though it remains closely tied to OpenAI.

In Washington, Sen. Bernie Sanders and strategist Steve Bannon have also both called for stronger AI safeguards despite their major political differences.

Partnership Does Not Mean the Rivalry Is Over

The collaboration does not mean Apple and Meta have resolved their broader disagreements.

Meta benefits from making its AI models available on more hardware, while Apple gets to demonstrate the computing power of its high-end Macs.

A bigger step would be Apple integrating Meta models directly into Apple Intelligence, but no such move has been announced.

Wang said the companies will continue competing in some areas while still working together when their interests align.