Apple acquires DarwinAI in the latest push, bought 32+ AI companies last year

Apple was a little late in deploying artificial intelligence, but when it did pick things up, there was no looking back. In the last year, Apple acquired over 30 startups operating in different stages. DarwinAI, a Canadian startup, is the latest addition to the list.

DarwinAI works on AI-driven technologies that better assist in the manufacturing process, but its primary focus is on making AI systems smaller, faster, and more efficient.

As reported by Bloomberg, Apple acquired DarwinAI earlier this year, though there has been no official confirmation so far. Some say that DarwinAI disabling its social media handles is in line with the established pattern of startups acquired by Apple.

Besides, Alexander Wong, the startup co-founder’s LinkedIn profile reads Director of Machine Learning at Apple since January’24, and a large number of DarwinAI’s employees have been inducted into Apple’s AI teams.

Apple’s plans with AI

Apple hasn’t shared too much regarding its plans for artificial intelligence. We reported previously about Apple developing its native chatbot, AppleGPT, which still finds application within the company and is not accessible to people.

Then, Apple dropped plans for electric vehicles and moved most of the affected employees to the AI teams. The Cupertino-based tech giant realizes it still has much to cover up since its competitors, Google and Microsoft, are way ahead in the race!

Apple previously introduced some AI-powered features in iOS 17, then added the functionality to Apple Vision Pro, and also released a text-to-image editing tool, MLLM-Guided Image Editing or MGIE, which was called a gamechanger.

With Apple on a spree to acquire AI startups encompassing different domains, we could see more being added to Apple’s list of acquisitions in the coming days. Plenty of AI-driven features should be seen in iOS 18 and some exclusives in iPhone 16, both to be released later this year.

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