Apple says its AI remains private, even though it runs on Google’s servers

Taking Private Cloud Compute on the road

Federighi shows off the advanced design of his new Apple Intelligence technology.

Credit: Andrew Cunningham

“This is the number of Google machines we use, which don’t exist,” Federighi says, standing in front of an empty slide in a theater that looks better than the large outdoor auditorium where he introduced CEO Tim Cook a few hours earlier.

Federighi recently described a “traditional chatbot architecture” – client software that runs on your device that accesses cloud-based models running on other servers. Those brands can reach Google Search or something similar “to (fix) the world’s information.”

Apple’s system still relies on built-in hardware for simple queries. In this year’s OSesmost of the Apple Intelligence devices get AFM 3 Core, the new version of Gemini developed by Google and Apple. New devices with at least 12GB of RAM and the latest chip (M3 is the latest for Macs, M4 is the latest for iPads, A19 Pro for iPhones only) uses AFM 3 Core Advanced instead, which enables the additional resources and storage of your device to work (it is used to control the control and power of the Siri voice).

For “more difficult” questions, your device will connect to the cloud-based models, also developed by Apple and Google: the most used model called AFM 3 Cloud, the photo model called ADM 3 Cloud, and the advanced model called AFM 3 Cloud Pro “for using tools and thinking hard.” The first two models, Apple says, still run on Apple’s own silicon on Apple’s servers. The Cloud Pro version is the one that runs on Google’s Nvidia hardware.

To do this while still promising privacy, Apple has introduced a iteration of Private Cloud Compute, this one designed to run on third-party devices. Apple is using it Nvidia’s Confidential Computing, Intel’s Trust Domain Extensionsand Google’s Titan security chip providing layers of security similar to what Apple provides for its servers. To provide additional security, Apple maintains a “private, standardized Google Cloud hardware ledger that is part of the PCC,” and Apple devices only rely on software on these servers that are signed by Apple.