Tech giant Apple Inc. is reportedly considering using artificial intelligence to help speed up the design of the custom chips that power its devices.
At a speech last month at the ITF World Conference in Belgium, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, Johny Srouji, said one of the key lessons the firm learned was that it needed to use the most cutting-edge tools available to design its chips, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a video of the talk.
“EDA (electronic design automation) companies are super critical in supporting our chip design complexities,” Srouji said. “Generative AI techniques have a high potential in getting more design work in less time, and it can be a huge productivity boost.”
Two of the industry’s largest electronic design automation firms, Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys, have also been looking to add AI to their offerings, the report noted.
In his speech, Srouji outlined Apple’s development of custom chips from early iPhone processors to the most recent chips that power Mac desktop computers and its Vision Pro augmented reality headset.
Apple already using AI
Srouji’s comments suggest that Apple wants to start using AI for the first time to make it quicker for its engineering teams to design the chips. However, AppleInsider reported that Apple has been using AI in its designs in some capacity for years.
Related: AI models still far from AGI-level reasoning: Apple researchers
Third-party companies leverage AI
AppleInsider reported that for years, Apple has relied on third-party EDA companies, which already leverage AI and machine learning in chip design.
It added that Synopsys states that using generative AI could help create new ways to design chips, which Apple relies on.
Microsoft job cuts
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that software giant Microsoft is planning to cut thousands of jobs, particularly in sales, as the firm streamlines its workforce amid increased focus and investments in AI.
The company has accelerated investments in AI, aiming to keep up with its competitors in the fast-paced industry, which is now seeing the integration of AI into products and services.
This week, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the rollout of generative AI and agentic AI will reduce its total corporate workforce over the next few years.
Magazine: AI is good for employment says PWC — Ignore the AI doomers: AI Eye
