SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Apple (AAPL) relied on chips designed by Google (GOOG, GOOGL)rather than industry leader Nvidia (NVDA) to build two key components of its artificial intelligence software infrastructure for its forthcoming suite of AI tools and features, an Apple research paper published on Monday showed. #AppleGoogleChips
Apple’s decision to rely on Google’s cloud infrastructure is notable because Nvidia produces the most sought-after AI processors.
Including the chips made by Google, Amazon.com (AMZN) and other cloud computing companies, Nvidia commands roughly 80% of the market.
In the research paper, Apple did not explicitly state the absence of Nvidia chips. However, the description of its hardware and software infrastructure lacked any mention of Nvidia hardware.
Apple did not comment on Monday.
The iPhone maker said that to train its AI models, it used two flavors of Google’s tensor processing unit (TPU) that are organized in large clusters of chips.
To build the AI model that will operate on iPhones and other devices, Apple used 2,048 of the TPUv5p chips. For its server AI model, Apple deployed 8,192 TPUv4 processors.
Nvidia does not design TPUs but rather focuses its efforts on so-called graphics processing units (GPUs) that are widely used for AI efforts. #AppleGoogleChips
Unlike Nvidia, which sells its chips and systems as standalone products, Google sells access to TPUs through its Google Cloud Platform. Customers interested in buying access must build software through Google’s cloud platform in order to use the chips.
In addition, the research paper shows that Apple’s AI models have benefited greatly from this partnership. By using Apple Google chips, the models achieved remarkable improvements. This move exemplifies how industry leaders are combining resources to drive innovation in AI.
