An Apple research paper published Monday showed that the company relied on chips designed by Google, not industry leader Nvidia, to build two key elements of its artificial intelligence software infrastructure for its upcoming suite of AI tools and features.
Apple’s decision to rely on Google’s cloud infrastructure is noteworthy given that Nvidia produces the most in-demand AI processors.
Including chips made by Google, Amazon and other cloud computing companies, Nvidia controls about 80% of the market.
In the research paper, Apple did not explicitly say that it does not use Nvidia chips, but its description of the hardware and software infrastructure for its AI tools and features lacked any mention of Nvidia hardware.
Apple did not comment on Monday.
To train its AI models, the iPhone maker said it used two types of Google’s tensor processing unit (TPU), which are organized into large clusters of chips.
To build the AI model that will work on it. iPhone For other devices, Apple used 2,048 TPUv5p chips. For the server AI model, Apple deployed 8,192 TPUv4 processors.
Nvidia does not design GPUs but rather focuses its efforts on so-called GPUs that are widely used in AI efforts.
Unlike Nvidia, which sells its chips and systems as standalone products, Google sells access to its CPUs through the Google Cloud platform. Customers interested in purchasing access must build software through Google‘s’ cloud platform for using chips.
Apple is rolling out parts of Apple Intelligence to its beta users this week.
Reuters reported on the use of TPU chips in June, but Apple did not disclose the full extent of its reliance on Google devices until Monday’s research paper.
Google did not respond to a request for comment, while Nvidia Refused to comment.
Apple engineers said in the research paper that it would be possible to make larger and more sophisticated models using Google chips, than the two discussed in the research paper.
Apple unveiled a host of new AI features at its developer conference in June, including integrating OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology into its software.
Shares of the Cupertino, California-based company fell 0.1 percent to $218.24 in regular trading Monday.
