Apple May Use Google Servers for AI-Powered Siri
Apple is reportedly considering a major strategy shift, potentially using Google's cloud servers to store data for its next-generation AI-powered Siri. The move would be a departure from Apple's long-standing emphasis on in-house infrastructure and privacy, reflecting the massive computational demands of modern AI.
This potential partnership extends a multi-year collaboration where Google's Gemini AI models will form the basis for Apple's future "Apple Foundation Models". The deal, which could see Apple paying Google around $1 billion annually, aims to give Siri a significant "brain upgrade". This move signifies a major reliance on a competitor for core technology, a departure from Apple's typical in-house approach. The turn to Google's infrastructure comes amid reports that Apple's own AI infrastructure is "beginning to decay" and has been hampered by a "cultural reluctance" to invest in cloud technologies. Apple's existing "Private Cloud Compute" system, which uses custom Apple silicon, is reportedly underutilized, with only about 10% of its capacity in use. Some servers for this system are even said to be sitting unused in warehouses. Training large language models is incredibly resource-intensive, requiring massive computational power, typically from high-performance GPUs or TPUs, and hundreds of gigabytes of storage for each model. Google's cloud servers, which run on their own custom-designed Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), are specifically built for running large AI models like Gemini and are considered more powerful and efficient for these tasks than Apple's current Mac-based infrastructure. To address privacy concerns, the companies are reportedly discussing a "Stateless AI" system. This means that while Siri queries would be processed on Google's servers, the data would not be saved or stored by Google. Google would need to adhere to Apple's strict privacy standards, a point that reportedly delayed previous considerations of using Google's cloud until security changes were made in 2023. This isn't the first time the two tech giants have collaborated, despite their rivalry in the smartphone market with iOS and Android. Google pays Apple billions annually—estimated between $18-20 billion in coming years—to be the default search engine on Safari. This existing financial relationship provides a framework for the new AI partnership.
