Who is Amar Subramanya? Check Education, Career and Achievements of New Apple AI Chief

Amar Subramanya was born in Bengaluru and is currently based in the US. Over more than two decades, he has led efforts on Machine Learning and large-scale AI systems at technology behemoths like Google, Microsoft, and now Apple. Considered a specialist in foundation models, natural language processing and semi-supervised learning, he is one of the big Indian-origin names now defining global Artificial Intelligence strategy.
Education and Academic Background
Subramanya did his BE in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Bangalore University from about 1997–2001.
He subsequently obtained a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington, Seattle in 2009, specialising in semi‑supervised learning and graphical models, techniques to help train AI systems efficiently when labeled data is limited.
During his PhD, he received a Microsoft Research Graduate Fellowship in 2007 and wrote, with co-author Partha Pratim Talukdar, the technical book "Graph‑Based Semi‑Supervised Learning", now commonly cited in machine-learning research and curricula.
Early Career: IBM, Microsoft and Research Work
After graduating, Subramanya worked briefly as a software engineer at IBM in 2001 and then did an internship/short stint at Microsoft around 2005, working on early applied ML problems.
His academic work covered speech recognition, natural language processing or NLP, entity resolution, and human-activity analysis that set the bedrock for the work he did later in large-scale AI products.
Subramanya joined Google in 2009 and has been with the company for about 16 years across research, engineering, and leadership.
Key highlights at Google:
Started as a Staff Research Scientist, then promoted to Principal Engineer and finally to Vice President of Engineering.
Worked very closely with Google DeepMind on various cutting-edge model-training and deployment work for large models.
Most recently led Engineering for Gemini, Google's flagship multimodal generative AI assistant, scaling to models of over a trillion parameters and integrating NLP, vision, and speech.
This experience positioned him as a specialist in taking frontier research and turning it into consumer-scale AI features.
Role at Microsoft prior to joining Apple
Following July 2025, he has relocated to Microsoft as Corporate Vice President, AI-a relatively short assignment, though a high-profile one before moving to Apple.
At Microsoft, he:
Oversaw foundation models that power Microsoft Copilot and related enterprise AI layers across productivity tools.
lead teams to scale large language models and align these with security and enterprise compliance requirements
Appointment as Apple's New AI Chief
Apple appointed Amar Subramanya to the position of VP of AI, succeeding John Giannandrea, who will remain as an adviser until his retirement in spring 2026.
Subramanya will report directly to Craig Federighi, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has characterized AI as "central to Apple's strategy," while saying Subramanya's hire is a key step in bolstering its AI roadmap amid criticism the company lags behind rivals on generative AI.
What will he lead at Apple?
According to Apple's announcements and media reports, Subramanya will:
Oversee Apple Foundation Models, the core large models powering Apple Intelligence on iPhone, iPad, Mac and services.
Lead machine‑learning research and applied AI groups that turn research into on‑device and cloud‑based features.
Lead AI Safety and Evaluation: Ensure Apple's models meet the standards for privacy, security, and reliability that customers trust in Apple.
Other parts of Giannandrea’s former organisation will move under COO Sabih Khan and Services chief Eddy Cue, reflecting a broader re-organisation of Apple’s AI and services stack.
Why This Matters: Strategic Significance for Apple
Apple has faced criticism for falling behind Google, Microsoft, and Samsung in deploying aggressive features of generative AI, even after launching its suite of Apple Intelligence in 2024.