Apple is chasing for AI chip startups: Report

Apple is exploring acquisitions of chip companies to strengthen its AI server processors, The Information reported Wednesday, marking a rare shift for a company that has historically stayed away from large deals.

The tech giant has approached chip startups directly and spoken with bankers about possible transactions, according to people familiar with the matter.

Currently, Apple’s AI servers are powered by its self-developed M2 Ultra processors, which have been unable to cope with heavy tasks. The company was expected to release an updated version of the server processor known as “Baltra” this year; however, according to sources cited by The Information, this release has been delayed.

This problem has become apparent recently, as during the reworking of Siri, when Apple attempted to run Google’s Gemini models on its own servers, it had to rely on Nvidia processors in the cloud servers from Google owing to the inability of its self-developed Mac-based processors to cope with the job.

The tech giant has not made major purchases for a long time and has preferred developing its chips internally. The last purchase by Apple happened in January, when the company bought Q.ai, which was working on audio artificial intelligence technology. Having $45.57 billion in cash and cash equivalents at hand as of March 28, Apple has enough freedom to pursue a more ambitious goal.

The new hardware head John Ternus will succeed Tim Cook as Apple's CEO in September, while Johny Srouji, who oversees the development of chips for the firm, now has more duties in hardware engineering at Apple.

The experience of the company in developing its chips has mainly been related to battery-driven devices and not to high-performance server silicon chips that can compete with Nvidia's chips.