Jun Kim, creator of oMLX, becomes part of Hugging Face to bolster the MLX ecosystem

Jun Kim joins Hugging Face to advance local AI

Hugging Face announced on September 22, 2026 that Jun Kim, the original creator and maintainer of the open‑source oMLX library, is now a full‑time team member.

“We are super excited to welcome Jun as our newest team member 🔥.” the company posted on its blog.

“We are completely invested in local AI, and MLX is a central piece of the ecosystem.” the announcement added.

“We are delighted that Jun chose us to set up home and continue contributing to MLX.” the statement continued.

MLX is Apple’s framework designed for on‑device artificial intelligence, especially tuned for Apple Silicon processors.

Since its introduction as a “Christmas present” from Awni and Angelos in 2023, Hugging Face has positioned itself as the primary hub where developers discover and share MLX models.

The hiring move signals Hugging Face’s commitment to supporting open, on‑device AI tools that run without cloud dependence.

Implications for oMLX and the broader MLX community

Jun Kim explained that joining Hugging Face will bring stability and potentially faster development to oMLX, which previously operated as a side project.

He emphasized that oMLX will remain under the Apache 2.0 license, and his leadership will continue unchanged.

Graduating to a fully funded position allows Kim to guide contributors more effectively and invest in long‑term roadmap planning.

Hugging Face expects oMLX to act as a testbed for new ideas while reusing foundational components such as mlx‑lm and mlx‑vlm.

The company plans to upstream useful work to wherever it aligns with the ecosystem’s needs.

Collaborations already exist with projects like mlx‑lm, mlx‑vlm, and LMStudio, and Hugging Face hopes to deepen ties with developers Cheng, Prince, and Yagil.

A concrete focus area is streamlining the conversion from a Transformers model definition to a reference MLX implementation that can be consumed by various inference engines.

Because the Transformers library has become the de‑facto standard for model definitions, simplifying this pipeline could accelerate the adoption of MLX across diverse hardware.

Future collaboration and community impact

Hugging Face’s strategy envisions a healthy ecosystem where developers can select tools that best fit their local AI requirements.

By integrating oMLX more tightly into its platform, the company aims to lower barriers for contributors who wish to experiment with Apple‑optimized models.

“We are incredibly excited about the future.” the blog post concluded, underscoring optimism about upcoming releases.

“Welcome, Jun! 🙌” the community responded with enthusiasm, reflecting broad support for the partnership.

Overall, the move positions Hugging Face as a central coordinator for on‑device AI innovation, while giving oMLX the resources needed for sustained growth.

Stakeholders can watch for upcoming releases that translate more Transformers models to MLX, as well as potential upstream contributions to core libraries.

Why This Matters: Hugging Face’s hiring of oMLX founder Jun Kim provides dedicated resources to strengthen Apple‑Silicon AI tooling and accelerate local model deployment.