News
iPhone maker reportedly pays $200 million for U.S. machine learning specialist.
Apple late last week agreed to acquire artificial intelligence specialist Turi.
This is according to a report by GeekWire, which cited multiple sources who claimed the iPhone maker paid approximately US$200 million (€180.4 million) for the company.
Apple declined to comment when contacted by Total Telecom.
Based in Seattle, Turi offers a range of machine learning products, from software development kits (SDKs) that allow developers and data scientists to create intelligent applications, to server-hosted predictive modelling services.
Acquiring an AI specialist like Turi would help Apple to make further improvements to its Siri digital assistant, which this autumn is being extended from the iPhone to the company’s entire product portfolio.
"AI technology is something that we will excel at because of our focus on user experience," said Apple CEO Tim Cook, on the company’s most recent investor call.
The acquisition also ups the ante between Apple and Google.
The latter has also made a big push into AI, and in May it unveiled Google Assistant, which is designed to respond conversationally to a user’s query, including answering follow-up questions.
This story was updated at 13:00 to include Apple’s response.
