Apple Expands AI Arsenal with DarwinAI Acquisition

Apple has recently acquired DarwinAI, a Canadian company specializing in vision-based technology for production monitoring.

According to Bloomberg, Apple has expanded its list of AI acquisitions by adding DarwinAI. This Canadian business focuses on vision-based tech for monitoring components during production to increase productivity.

Despite the lack of official announcements from Apple or DarwinAI, LinkedIn profiles show that multiple DarwinAI employees joined Apple’s machine learning divisions in January.

Among the investors that contributed to DarwinAI’s $15 million in fundraising were Inovia Capital, Honeywell Ventures, Obvious Ventures, and BDC Capital’s Deep Tech Venture Fund. Even though Obvious Venture has revised its holdings to reflect the acquisition of DarwinAI, BDC Capital has verified on its website that it has obtained an exit from the startup.

Neither Obvious Venture nor BDC Capital commented on the story as it was written. Apple did not promptly address requests for comment.

In addition to assisting with production efficiency, DarwinAI employs methods to reduce the size and speed of AI models, as pointed out in Bloomberg’s study. Apple plans to bring on-device generative AI tools in iOS 18 this year, which could be handy for them.

Compared to rivals like OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, Apple has slowly released features powered by generation AI. Such functions will be introduced “later this year,” according to Apple Tim Cook’s February statement.

“We continue to spend a huge amount of time and effort, and we’re thrilled to release the details of our ongoing work in that arena later this year,” Cook said during a quarterly earnings call with analysts.

The confirmation of financing in gen-AI initiatives was made. According to Bloomberg, they have expanded its list of AI acquisitions by adding DarwinAI. This Canadian business focuses on vision-based tech for monitoring components during production to increase productivity.

Despite the lack of official announcements from Apple or DarwinAI, LinkedIn profiles show that multiple DarwinAI employees joined Apple’s machine learning divisions in January.

Among the investors that contributed to DarwinAI’s $15 million in fundraising were Inovia Capital, Honeywell Ventures, Obvious Ventures, and BDC Capital’s Deep Tech Venture Fund. Even though Obvious Venture has revised its holdings to reflect the acquisition of DarwinAI, BDC Capital has verified on its website that it has obtained an exit from the startup.

Neither Obvious Venture nor BDC Capital commented on the story as it was written. They did not promptly address requests for comment.

In addition to assisting with production efficiency, DarwinAI employs methods to reduce the size and speed of AI models, as pointed out in Bloomberg’s study. Apple plans to bring on-device generative AI tools in iOS 18 this year, which could be handy for them.

Compared to rivals like OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, they have slowly released features powered by generation AI. Such functions will be introduced “later this year,” according to Apple Tim Cook’s February statement.

“We continue to spend a huge amount of time and effort, and we’re thrilled to release the details of our ongoing work in that arena later this year,” Cook said during a quarterly earnings call with analysts.

The confirmation of financing in gen-AI initiatives was made public last year by the Apple senior executive. Job postings at Apple have hinted that the tech giant is looking into integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into various internal and external services, such as Siri, developer tools, and customer assistance.