Apple reportedly developing new dedicated chip for AI data centers

Apple has been investing a lot in artificial intelligence recently, and soon the company will introduce its own generative AI to the world. In fact, it looks like the company is taking AI seriously, as a new report claims that Apple is developing a new chip specifically to power AI processing data centers.

Apple working on “AI chip” for servers

A report by the Wall Street Journal says that the company is building “AI chips” for data centers, potentially to run some of its new AI-based features to be announced at WWDC 2024 next month.

“Apple has been working on its own chip designed to run artificial intelligence software in data center servers, a move that has the potential to provide the company with a key advantage in the AI arms race,” Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie told the WSJ, citing sources familiar with the matter. The project is known as “ACDC” – for Apple Chips in Data Center.

The report comes after analyst Jeff Pu of Haitong International Securities said this week that Apple is using both M2 Ultra and M4 chips to power servers dedicated to iOS 18’s new AI-based features.

The company is expected to introduce many features based on generative AI with iOS 18 and other software updates to be announced in June at WWDC 2024. Apple has also been developing its own language models that can run offline. However, these models are more limited, so having online alternatives would be ideal for providing more accurate results.

Interestingly, previous reports have revealed that Apple has been in discussions with both OpenAI and Google to use their AI technologies in iOS 18. It’s unclear whether Apple still plans to strike deals with third parties or will just use its own servers instead.

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