Apple continues to give a push to its artificial intelligence initiative. The company is reported to have hired a Carnegie Mellon professor to lead its AI research team.

The new appointee Ruslan Salakhutdinov is an associate professor with the university's machine learning department. He will work simultaneously with Carnegie Mellon and Apple.

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Salakhutdinov had worked with the University of Toronto and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining Carnegie Mellon earlier this year. He has also been involved in various research projects funded by Microsoft, Samsung, and Google. Salakhutdinov has also published numerous papers on neural networks. Neural Networks mainly deals with image and voice recognition technologies.

Artificial Intelligence is fast becoming important for tech companies due to its potential for multiple applications. The most prominent use of AI has been for the development of digital assistants. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are the main technologies behind the emergence of digital assistants such as Apple' Siri and Microsoft's Cortana. Apart from these companies, Google has an assistant while Amazon has developed Alexa.

Apple is looking to close the gap with AI pioneering companies such as Google and Facebook. Its digital assistant Siri has been criticized for its relatively slower evolution than its peers such as Google Assistant and Alexa.

Apple has been on a spree, trying to boost its AI activities. It acquired Turi reportedly for nearly $200 million in August this year. Turi is a machine learning startup. This purchase was followed by the acquisition of Tuplejump. The financial details of this acquisition have not been revealed.