Apple turns to Amazon chips for AI pre-training and more

As reported by CNBC, Apple’s senior director of machine learning and artificial intelligence, Benoit Dupin, made a surprise appearance at Amazon’s AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas today.

Dupin used the opportunity to explain that Apple uses custom artificial intelligence chips from Amazon Web Services for many of its cloud services. Apple is also evaluating using Amazon’s newest AI chip to pre-train its Apple Intelligence models.

While speaking at the event, Dubin touted that Apple has used AWS chips, like the Graviton and Inferntia, for over a decade to help power Siri and search, the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Maps, and more. In doing this, Apple realized a 40% gain in efficiency compared to x86 chips from Intel and AMD.

“We have a strong relationship, and the infrastructure is both reliable, definite and able to serve our customers worldwide,” Dubin explained. Before joining Apple in 2014, Dubin served as the vice president of Amaozn’s A9 Search Technology group.

Dubin also confirmed that Apple is currently evaluating the latest AWS AI training chip, dubbed the Trainium2. During his appearance, Dubin said that Apple expects “up to 50% improvement in efficiency with pre-training” with the Trainium2 chip.”

Apple’s use of the Trainium2 would be tied to pre-training for artificial intelligence models. The chips would not be used for Apple Intelligence features.

Apple Intelligence features are powered on-device or in the cloud using Apple’s Private Cloud Compute platform. Apple’s Private Cloud Compute infrastructure is built on its own Apple Silicon chips.

Earlier this year, Apple also confirmed in a research document that it used Google Tensor chips to train artificial intelligence models. At the time, we noted that it was notable for Apple to opt for Google’s Tensor chips instead of the Nvidia chips that other companies tend to rely on.

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