Apple and Meta Collaborate on Muse Spark Open for Mac Studio

Muse Spark Open, the latest AI model from Meta, has found an unlikely partner in Apple. The two tech giants have joined forces to make this massive model run locally on Apple’s M5 Ultra Mac Studios. This collaboration marks a significant shift in their relationship, as they’ve had their differences in the past.

The Muse Spark Open model is no small feat, boasting 816 billion parameters and requiring two connected Apple desktops to power it. According to Meta, developers can download and customize this open-weight model, subject to its license terms. This setup allows for local processing without sending each prompt to a hosted model, giving users more control over their data.

Meta’s AI chief, Alexandr Wang, expressed his excitement about the collaboration in an interview with Axios. He described it as ‘mommy and daddy playing nice again,’ highlighting the unusual nature of this corporate partnership. This marks a significant change from January 2025, when Mark Zuckerberg criticized Apple on Joe Rogan’s podcast for its lack of innovation and restrictions on other companies’ products.

Muse Spark Open builds upon Meta’s previous model family, introduced in April. The company claims it is the most capable U.S. open-weight model available, based on their own evaluations. This model is designed for tasks such as coding, multistep reasoning, and ‘agentic’ work – using tools to complete tasks. In its tests, Meta used Muse Code, powered by this new model, to make changes to the Mastodon app Ice Cubes and operate video editor DaVinci Resolve.

The collaboration between Apple and Meta has a significant catch: it requires two M5 Ultra Mac Studios with up to 512GB of unified memory each. The MLX machine-learning framework is used to run the model, which can be downloaded via GitHub along with the required MLX Adapter. This setup may not be feasible for everyday MacBook users, but it does provide a way around the longstanding issue of privacy.

The release follows Meta’s smaller model, Muse Glimmer, designed to run on laptops or PCs. Both models reflect the appeal of running AI on hardware you control, allowing local processing without relying on hosted models. This collaboration may be just the beginning for Apple and Meta, as they explore ways to integrate their technologies further.