Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple are, according to experts, the most active companies in the world, in recent years, in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). You just have to look at the data reported by CB Insight (see table) and that show how these companies get hold of the most innovative startups in this field. If we focus on Apple, in the last three years it has made some movements that indicate a qualitative leap in its strategy to lead developments in the field of AI, and that these are, logically, reflected in its products.
Since Siri acquired SRI Venture Group in 2010 for $ 200 million, the following years were not characterized by Apple for being excessively wordy in hiring and acquisitions, or at least they were not known.
Since 2014, however, Apple would have doubled its staff in artificial intelligence. This is the conclusion reached by the specialized publication Fast Company, which has analyzed more than 600 Apple employees who are experts in machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing and other disciplines related to AI.
According to this publication, the fishing ground for Apple’s signings in artificial intelligence in the last three years are companies such as Yahoo or eBay, and the universities of Stanford, California, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon and the prestigious MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
One of the most striking and recent additions, in October 2016, is that of Ruslan Salakhutdinov, who according to some analysts is another of those AI geniuses that sprout from Carnegie Mellon University, where he also continues as an advisor and researcher in the field of deep learning or deep learning.
Already before, in 2015, Apple would have incorporated Jonathan Cohen, until then director of Deep Learning in the processor company Nvidia, to join the development of driver assistance systems (ADAS) or solutions for autonomous vehicles in Apple’s Titan project of which so little is known.
Also relevant, in addition to intensifying the hiring of scientists and AI experts, is that Apple has once again made silent acquisitions of innovative startups. If we except the most recent purchases of Shazam, for 400 million dollars, and Pop-up Archive in December 2017, since 2014 the apple company has not stopped acquiring small startups specialized in a specific area or solution in the field of artificial intelligence.
One of them is init.AI. At the time, last October, that init. AI announced that it would not continue its activity and the development of its intelligent assistant, six of its members joined Apple to work on the development of Siri, Apple’s assistant that uses voice and natural language based commands to answer questions from its users.
A few months earlier, Apple had spent $ 200 million to buy Turi, a Seattle-based startup specializing in machine learning and data analytics.
But there is more, as shown in the CB Insight chart: Vocal IQ -located in Cambridge and specialized in self-learning-, Perceptio -Californian company focused on the development of facial recognition algorithms-, Faceshift -startup that designs 3D facial models- , Emotient -also an expert in the field of face reading-, or Tuplejump -an company from India specialized in Big Data and contextual and predictive data analysis-.
There is no doubt about Apple’s commitment and commitment to developing new solutions and improving those it already has in the field of artificial intelligence, such as Siri or the facial recognition that integrates its A11 Bionic processor in the iPhone X. Will we see new this year advances? We will know soon if the forecasts are met and in the next announcements in Cupertino Apple surprises the market again.
