apple The Wall Street Journal reported that the company is developing chips that run artificial intelligence software in data centers. report Tuesday.
Project ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) has been in the works for several years, but no firm timeline has been set, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The iPhone maker is collaborating with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on chip design and production, but it remains unclear whether the efforts have yielded any positive results, the report said.
WSJ said Apple’s server chips will likely focus on AI inference rather than training AI models, an area that experts say will remain dominated by US chip giant Nvidia.
Inference in AI is the process that trained machine learning models use to draw conclusions from new data. Other big tech companies, such as Google, are investing in developing their own AI inference server chips as part of an effort to unshackle chip designers.
Experts say Apple is falling behind in the AI race while rivals such as Microsoft are investing billions of dollars in AI technology and infrastructure.
CEO Tim Cook said in February that the company was making “significant investments” in the technology and expected to make AI-related announcements later this year. Analysts expect the company to make an announcement at the Worldwide Developers Conference scheduled for June.
In Apple’s latest quarterly magazine financial statement Cook told investors Thursday that the company will continue to invest in AI. “We believe in the transformative power and promise of AI, and believe it has differentiating advantages in this new era,” he said.
Apple’s fiscal second-quarter profit beat expectations, even though overall sales fell 4% due to a drop in iPhone sales. On Thursday, the company announced a $110 billion share buyback, the largest in its history, sending its stock price soaring.