In October 2023, nearly a yr in the past, Fb mother or father firm Meta Platforms Inc. (Nasdaq: META) determined to chop again its improvement of chips for the “metaverse”, CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s digital actuality imaginative and prescient that since then has fallen within the firm’s inner order of priorities in favor of synthetic intelligence. The interior chip improvement division was shut down, and contracts have been signed with Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) to develop the chips, in accordance with Reuters.
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All the identical, due to the October 7 bloodbath, which came about whereas this course of was occurring at Meta, it was determined to delay the transfer in Israel, and it will definitely came about in January, with the layoff of 90 improvement engineers, who since then have been employed by the US semiconductor giants with exercise in Israel. This was a staff that got here to Meta on account of its acquisition of Inomize in 2021, an acquisition described as “collaboration”. Inomize’s Netanya workplaces have been subsequently closed, and the staff have been switched to Meta’s workplaces within the Azrieli Sarona Tower, the place they remained till final January.
Below this system launched by Zuckerberg in 2019, when his firm was nonetheless known as Fb, the division for improvement of chips for wearable units (FAST), which at its peak employed some 600 individuals, was meant to supply the Orion chip as the idea for the entire firm’s wearable units, from bracelets to augmented actuality glasses. The corporate’s traders signaled to Zuckerberg, nonetheless, that the metaverse imaginative and prescient and the massive funding it concerned was liable to come back on the expense of funding in synthetic intelligence, and Zuckerberg apparently determined to chop again the interior funding and to outsource improvement.
So far as is understood, Meta’s improvement exercise in chips for servers and synthetic intelligence has no presence in Israel. Meta mentioned in response: “That is a part of the streamlining processes introduced by Meta up to now. Meta continues to put money into Israel, and to make use of a whole lot of individuals within the nation.”
Printed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on September 4, 2024.
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