Apple appears to have just shunned Nvidia again

Apple's latest research paper revealed its use of Google chips for training iPhone AI, seemingly instead of Nvidia's GPUs.

• It appears that Apple opted for Google's TPU chips over Nvidia's for its AI development.
• An Apple research paper highlights the use of TPUv5p chips from Google for iPhone AI.
• Nvidia chips remain in high demand, and the company charges toward a $4 trillion valuation.

It looks like Apple has confirmed it's using Google's chips for Apple Intelligence — not Nvidia's.

There was no mention of Nvidia in an Apple research paper published on Monday that discussed foundation language models developed to power Apple Intelligence features. In fact, the tech giant wrote that it used TPUv4 and TPUv5p chips, Google's tensing processing units, to train its artificial intelligence tools.

Nvidia chips, which use graphics processing units for AI processing, are in high demand in the tech industry. Companies like Meta spend big to amass large volumes of them to train their models. According to a Mizuho Securities estimate, Nvidia controls more than 70% of the AI chips market, and the chips can cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy.

Google uses its own TPU chips instead and rents them out through its cloud service to clients like Apple.

While Apple didn't explicitly say that no Nvidia chips were used in the hardware and software infrastructure of its AI features, it has been somewhat public about its work with Google to train its upcoming Apple Intelligence.

In Monday's research paper, Apple wrote that it used 2,048 TPUv5p chips (made by Google) to build the AI model that will reportedly operate on iPhones and other Apple hardware.

Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Alphabet are among the top companies in the world by market cap. Nvidia's success in the AI chip market has helped drive it to a more than $2 billion valuation in the last few years.