What kind of technology did the AI startup 'DarwinAI' that Apple had quietly acquired have?

Foreign media outlet Bloomberg reported that Apple had acquired Canadian AI startup DarwinAI in early 2024. Although the deal was not officially announced, dozens of employees from DarwinAI have already joined Apple's AI division.

Apple (AAPL) Buys Canadian AI Startup DarwinAI as Part of Race to Add Features - Bloomberg

NEW: Apple has acquired Canadian artificial intelligence startup DarwinAI, adding technology to its arsenal ahead of a big push into generative AI in 2024. https://t.co/B7eCzMqI5N

— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) March 14, 2024

Report: Apple Acquired Canadian AI Startup DarwinAI
https://www.pymnts.com/artificial-intelligence-2/2024/report-apple-acquired-canadian-ai-startup-darwinai/

According to anonymous sources contacted by Bloomberg, Apple will acquire DarwinAI in early 2024, with dozens of staff moving to Apple's AI division. Alexander Wong , an AI researcher at the University of Waterloo and co-founder of DarwinAI, has joined Apple as AI director, Bloomberg reports.

When Bloomberg asked Apple about this transaction, it said, ``We sometimes acquire small technology companies,'' but did not mention the acquisition of DarwinAI.

DarwinAI, based in Waterloo, Canada, is an AI startup founded in 2017 that provides a service that uses AI to improve visual inspection in the printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing process. 'We realized that no other company had combined AI, hardware, and software to create a system that was easy to integrate into electronics manufacturing processes,' CEO Sheldon Fernandez said at the time of the 2022 funding round. By facilitating inspection units and data analysis, customers can install inspection units in new locations and enable entirely new capabilities such as returned product verification, process audits, and retrospective quality inspections.' .

However, Bloomberg said, ``One of DarwinAI's core technologies is to make AI systems smaller and faster,'' pointing out that the purpose of Apple's acquisition of DarwinAI was not a PCB inspection tool. Since Apple is pursuing AI that runs on devices such as the iPhone rather than the cloud, DarwinAI's know-how in miniaturizing and speeding up AI systems is useful.

Apple made a number of acquisitions of AI-related companies from 2016 to 2020, but when compared with competitors such as Google, which develops the multimodal AI ' Gemini ', and Microsoft, which partners with ChatGPT developer OpenAI, the article At the time of creation, we have not been able to release any notable AI products. It has been pointed out that the reasons for this include dysfunctional AI development departments, a lack of ambition among executives, and a cautious attitude toward AI.

It has been pointed out that Apple's cautiousness and dysfunctional development team are hindering AI efforts with the voice assistant 'Siri', and there are concerns that it will miss the new era of AI - GIGAZINE

However, Apple is still investing heavily in AI development , and it has been reported that it has discussed multi-year contracts with various media outlets to train generative AI.

iOS 18, scheduled to be released in 2024, will include 'a new Siri based on large-scale language models such as ChatGPT and Gemini,' 'AI integration with Pages, Keynote, and Numbers,' 'AI-powered autofill in messaging apps,' and ' It is rumored that various AI-related functions will be installed, such as an AI function that automatically creates playlists with Apple Music.

Summary of new AI functions rumored to appear in 'iOS 18' - GIGAZINE