Apple’s Israeli R&D center is undergoing a leadership transition: Rony Friedman, who led Apple Israel’s research and development operations for the past nine years, is stepping down to lead a new global group called Chip-AI, which will use artificial intelligence models to help design future chips. Tal Inbar will replace him as head of Apple Israel’s R&D center. Inbar joined Apple following its acquisition of Israeli flash memory startup Anobit in 2012, and has led development of several generations of storage controllers, the Apple Watch’s system-on-chip (SoC), and Apple’s Pro, Max and Ultra versions of its M-series chips. In his most recent role, he led development of Apple’s SoC technology for its data centers, and will continue overseeing the storage and SoC engineering groups at the center. Both Friedman and Inbar will report to Sri Santhanam, Apple’s vice president of the Silicon Engineering Group. During Friedman’s tenure, Apple Israel contributed to six generations of Apple silicon chips for the Mac, helped design the company’s first dedicated processors for data centers, and developed storage technologies used across Apple’s product portfolio. Friedman said the center’s engineers also worked on camera technologies, including Face ID and low-light photography, and contributed to Vision Pro through hand and eye tracking and object recognition. He noted Israeli involvement in AirPods, including heart-rate monitoring and hearing-loss features.