Despite concerns about Apple's privacy-focused approach, the use of Amazon's chips does not affect Apple's processing practices. The chips are used for training the models, not processing queries. This training is a processor-intensive task that doesn't touch user data, so it doesn't necessarily need to be performed in-house. The announcement could impact Google, as Apple had previously used Google-designed hardware to build the Apple Foundation Model. Apple's interest in Amazon's chips could lead to a similar situation of server rental or hardware purchases.
Key takeaways:
- Apple is using chips sourced from Amazon Web Services to handle searches and may also use them to pre-train Apple Intelligence AI models.
- Apple has been using AWS for over a decade for services like Siri, Apple Maps, and Apple Music, and the use of Amazon's chips has made searches 40% more efficient.
- Apple is considering Amazon's Trainium2 chip for potential use to pretrain its models, which could lead to a 50% improvement in efficiency with pretraining.
- Despite concerns about privacy, the use of Amazon's chips does not affect Apple's processing practices as it's about training the models, not processing queries, and this process does not touch user data.