Based on new information, Apple obtained 25 AI businesses between 2016 and 2020.
For many years, Apple lagged behind other technology giants such as Google and Facebook to integrate the newest artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies to its products.
That has changed over the last half a decade, nevertheless. Based on data released by GlobalData, between 2016 and 2020, Apple has been the technology giant that obtained the best variety of AI businesses.
Doing this conquers Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Accenture, all of which also lay claim to some high number of acquisitions in this area.
Lots of AI Acquisitions
Businesses snapped by Apple comprise Emotient, Tuplejump Software, Turi, Flyby Media, Glimpse, Lattice Data, Pop Up Archive, RealFace, Shazam, DeskConnect, Silk Labs, Drive.ai, Asaii, Inductive, Subverse, XNOR.ai, along with others.
Apple averaged approximately five acquisitions annually in line with this listing, together with 2017 being its weakest season and seven documented AI acquisitions. In general, Apple obtained some 25 AI businesses throughout the time.
On the other hand, the simple fact that Apple doesn’t promote all its acquisitions implies that others could be purchased without Apple-watcher’s understanding.
With the probable exception of this ever-useful music recognition service Shazam, lots of the titles of their startups purchased by Apple are somewhat smaller, lesser-known businesses. Still, all can greatly enhance Apple hardware and applications through incorporating higher smarts into several products.
Nicklas Nilsson, Senior Analyst on the Thematic Research Team in GlobalData, stated:
Apple has gone on a hunting spree to catch up with Google (Google Assistant) and Amazon (Alexa). Siri was on the current marketplace, but it always ranks below both about smartness, and that’s partially why Apple is much behind in clever speaker earnings. Apple also ought to be certain that you keep its powerful standing within wearables. It’s the dominant participant in smartwatches. The purchase of Xnor.ai this past year has been created to boost its on-edge processing capacities, which is becoming significant since it removes the requirement for information to be routed to the cloud, thus improving data solitude.
Apple Is Trying to Win the AI Race
Just buying AI businesses isn’t a warranty that Apple wins the AI race.
But this variety of acquisitions, along with the ongoing hiring of top-notch AI engineers such as generative adversarial network (GAN) leader Ian Goodfellow at 2019, reveals that Apple is eager to grab –and perhaps even overtake–a few of its competitors in this crucially important field of technology.
Whether it succeeds to do this remains to be viewed. It bodes well for clients who need better, more intelligent goods, however.
