According to Bloomberg, Apple has added another artificial intelligence startup to its acquisition list, Canada’s DarwinAI, which specializes in vision-based technology to observe components during the manufacturing process to improve efficiency.
While the deal has not been announced by Apple or DarwinAI, several members of the startup’s team joined Apple’s machine learning team in January, according to its LinkedIn profile.
DarwinAI has raised more than $15 million in funding across multiple rounds from investors including BDC Capital’s Deep Tech Venture Fund, Honeywell Ventures, Obvious Ventures and Inovia Capital. BDC Capital confirmed on its website that it had received an exit from DarwinAI, while Obvious Venture updated its portfolio to reflect that the startup had been acquired.
As of this writing, BDC Capital and Obvious Venture have not commented on the matter. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As Bloomberg noted in its report, in addition to helping make manufacturing more efficient, DarwinAI also uses technology to make AI models smaller and faster. This could be useful for the AI capabilities Apple hopes to introduce on devices with iOS 18 this year.
Compared with competitors such as OpenAI, Google, Meta and Microsoft, Apple has lagged behind in releasing artificial intelligence-based features. In February, Tim Cook said the company planned to launch such a feature “later this year.”
“We continue to spend a lot of time and effort, and we’re excited to share details of our ongoing work in this area later this year,” Cook said during a quarterly earnings call with analysts.
Last year, Apple executives confirmed their investment in the gen-AI project. Apple’s job listings indicate that the company is exploring injecting artificial intelligence into multiple internal and external areas, including Siri, developer tools and customer support.
