Leadership change at Apple Israel: Roni Friedman to lead new AI division

Roni Friedman, who has managed Apple's development center in Israel for more than nine years, is transitioning to a new role within the company to lead CHIP-AI, a new division designed to enable employees to utilize AI tools. Tal Inbar has been appointed as the site manager for Apple in Israel, in addition to his current role as leader of the SoC and storage engineering teams at the center.

During Friedman's tenure, the teams in Israel developed and launched six generations of Apple Silicon chips for Mac computers, designed Apple's first dedicated chip for data centers, and developed storage solutions for all of Apple's product lines. Inbar joined Apple following the acquisition of the Israeli startup Anobit and has led the development of chips over the years for several generations of storage controllers, Apple Watch SoC chips, and M-series chips in Pro, Max, and Ultra versions. Recently, he spearheaded the development of Apple Silicon SoC chips for the company's data centers.

Anobit was founded in June 2006 by Prof. Udi Weinstein, Dr. Ofir Shalvi, and Ariel Maislos, specializing in the development and production of chips and storage solutions. In December 2011, the company was acquired by Apple for $390 million; following the acquisition, its offices in Herzliya became Apple's offices in Israel.