Apple is considering acquisitions of companies specialized in designing AI chips, in order to enhance its server capabilities and accelerate the development of AI services, after its current infrastructure faced performance challenges.

According to a report published by The Information tech website, Apple has held talks with semiconductor companies and financial advisors to explore acquisition opportunities of companies that have expertise in developing server chips, as it seeks to strengthen the infrastructure needed to run AI applications.

The report indicated that Apple's servers based on the M2 Ultra chip suffer from shortcomings in executing some advanced AI tasks. In contrast, the company relies on Nvidia chips via the Google Cloud platform to run more complex tasks, including the Gemini model that supports the new Siri AI features.

Bloomberg had reported that the new server chip based on the M7 Ultra will not be ready before 2029, while Apple is preparing to update its infrastructure in the near future using M5 Ultra chips. It also indicated that the company had been planning to launch a new server chip codenamed "Baltra" this year, but the project timeline was delayed.

In the context of its growing interest in AI infrastructure, Apple last week signed an agreement with Broadcom to purchase chips worth $30 billion manufactured within the United States.

Even though Apple has extensive experience in designing chips for consumer devices, developing server chips is a different field that requires specialized expertise, which explains its potential move towards acquiring companies with advanced technologies in this sector.

It is worth noting that Apple entered the chip design field after acquiring PA Semi in 2008 for $278 million, and it has historically been conservative in executing large acquisitions.

During this year, Apple acquired the AI company Q.ai in a deal valued at around $2 billion, making it the second largest acquisition in its history after the Beats purchase for $3 billion over a decade ago.

With the escalating competition in AI technologies and the rising value of chip design companies, Apple may be forced to pay large amounts to complete any new acquisition in this field, especially since it has strong financial liquidity; its cash reserves amounted to about $45.6 billion by the end of last March.

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Apple Artificial Intelligence

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July 16, 2026Last updated: July 16, 2026

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