Bloomberg reported this week, citing insider sources, that Apple has acquired Canadian AI startup DarwinAI earlier this year, with DarwinAI employees joining Apple’s AI division.
Currently, DarwinAI’s official website has been taken down. However, archived web pages from the Internet Archive (IA) at the end of last year reveal that DarwinAI, founded in 2017, primarily focused on developing AI applications for the manufacturing industry. This includes a defect detection platform for printed circuit boards (PCBs) to help businesses accelerate their return on investment and reduce electronic waste.
Additionally, DarwinAI collaborated with researchers from the University of Waterloo to develop TinySpeech, a speech recognition model applicable to edge devices like smartphones.
Apple declined to confirm the news to Bloomberg but mentioned their ongoing acquisition of small tech companies.
Compared to major US tech players like Microsoft, Google, or Meta, Apple has been relatively slower in the field of AI. They only started publicly sharing their AI research achievements in December of last year. However, according to a survey by market analysis firm Stocklytics, Apple has already acquired up to 32 AI startups, surpassing Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon. Furthermore, Apple announced during their February earnings conference that they plan to deploy generative AI this year.
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