Perhaps it could sell or rent these servers?
The one thing Apple Intelligence has that perhaps isn’t being fully explained is that Apple also offers developers APIs so they can weave the generative AI technology into their products. Right now, that means introducing Apple Intelligence features within them, but given the importance of AI to developers, and the desire among some of them to make smart tools that can be used privately for specific use cases, at what point might Apple offer Private Cloud Compute as a service to provide trusted computing? Perhaps that is why it is putting the system through such rigorous security review?
There has to be an opportunity. There will be some companies who want to make their own AI solutions, but demand the kind of hardcore security Private Cloud Compute provides. Given that Apple has tasked Foxconn with making servers to support that service, at what point will provision of the servers, along with the bare bones, highly secure, software they run, become a business opportunity? There’s a business case, and given Apple is already leading the industry in just how willing it is to open these boxes up for security review, it feels like a potential direction — if there’s any money in it.
And there clearly is — quite a lot, in fact.