Apple’s CFO is said to have blocked the procurement of GPUS

Apple’s AI models are considered not as leading as that of Openai and Co. A media report now has a suspicion of why this could be the case: Apparently Apple’s CFO Luca Maestri was prevented around two years ago. These chips are indispensable for the quick training of large AI models.

A Report of the New York Times gives insights into a decision-making process that may cost Apple a lot of quick progress in his AI models of the Apple Intelligence brand and refers to five people familiar with the process. At the beginning of 2023, John Giannandrea, head of Apple’s AI department, is said to have asked Apple CEO Tim Cook to buy additional GPUs to advance AI development. At this point, Apple had around 50,000 GPUs, all around five years old. No comparison to other leading AI companies such as Microsoft or Openai, which are significantly better positioned here.

Maestri thwarted the invoice

Cook is said to have then approved to double the Giannandreas department’s chip budget. CFO Maestri then thwarted the bill: he halved the increase in the budget and stated the department to optimize the efficiency of its existing GPUs.

The lack of own GPUs inevitably led the Apple people to get additional capacities from external providers in data centers. And because the Nvidia GPUs were so in demand, Apple should have partially had to switch to Google to GPUS to train his KIS. Overall, Apple was apparently less powerful with significantly less performance than the competition.

It was the start of a whole range of problems in Apple’s AI area. There was also trouble between the individual teams-and a struggle about who is having the hat off to the Siri project. Which in turn led to Apple had to postpone some announced Siri renovations that the manufacturer had already advertised. This in turn gave the tech giant some consumer lawsuits in front of US courts. According to the New York Times report, the features are now to be delivered in autumn 2025.