Apple has also never been big on the server side equation of both software and hardware - don't they already outsource most of their cloud stack to Google via GCP ?

I can see them eventually training their own models (especially smaller and more targeted / niche ones) but at their scale they can probably negotiate a pretty damn good deal renting Google TPUs and expertise.

Yeah… there’s this “bro— do you even business?” vibe in the tech world right now pointed at any tech firm not burning oil tankers full of cash (and oil, for that matter,) training a giant model. That money isn’t free — the economic consequences of burning billions to make a product that will be several steps behind, at best, are giant. There’s a very real chance these companies won’t recoup that money if their product isn’t attractive to hoards of users willing to pay more money for AI than anyone currently is. It doesn’t even make them look cool to regular people — their customers hate hearing about AI. Since there are viable third party options available, I think Apple would have to be out of their goddamned minds to try and jump in that race right now. They’re a product company. Nobody is going to not buy an iPhone because they’re using a third-party model.

And when the cost of training LLMs starts to come down to under $1B/yr, Apple can jump on board, having saved >$100B in not trying to chase after everyone else to try to get there first.