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Apple has begun shipping American-made artificial intelligence servers from a newly built factory in Houston, beating its 2026 target.

apple-intelligence-black.jpeg

The servers designed for Apple's Private Cloud Compute system have started shipping from the 250,000-square-foot Houston site months earlier than planned. Apple Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan confirmed the acceleration in a statement provided to Fox Business:

We are thrilled to be shipping American-made advanced servers from our Houston facility. As part of our $600 billion commitment to the United States, these servers will be installed in our data centers and play a key role in powering Apple Intelligence with Private Cloud Compute. Our teams have done an incredible job accelerating work to get the new Houston factory up and running ahead of schedule, and we plan to continue expanding the facility to increase production next year.

Private Cloud Compute is the architecture Apple uses to offload certain Apple Intelligence computations from devices to the cloud, while preserving the on-device privacy model that Apple says is core to its AI system. Apple CEO Tim Cook also posted on X about the news:



Apple is reportedly partnering with local contractors and recruiting from Houston City College to staff the facility. The Houston facility is part of a $600 billion U.S. investment commitment Apple made earlier this year, which includes capital for domestic manufacturing, silicon engineering, R&D, and workforce training initiatives.

Article Link: Apple Starts Shipping Made-in-America AI Servers Early
 
Is this just assembly from Chinese components or do they use as much American (or Western) made components as possible?

The world is bifurcating in two trade & security blocs, we are in early days of the second cold war and it's important that the Western world rebuilds its supply chain.
 
Does Apple assemble using components from America or China?

Most of what is on the board will be from China.

The PCB will be made by one of the large board houses in China. All the passive components will be from China. Half the power control ICs will be made in Europe, then packaged in China and sent to the US.

But you know, they made the processor in America. Using European technology and materials from China.

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Ignoring that. When can I host my own stuff in my own house again? That is sovereign technology...
 
Great hardware, crappy software - i'd rather Apple actually pay the money for some good AI staff rather than let them go and give them the autonomy to make Apple AI / Siri useful.

Jobs was always about the user experince and Apple seems to be losing this focus. They are so far behind the AI game that they either need to buy OpenAI to stay relevant or pull out a miracle.
 
Is this just assembly from Chinese components or do they use as much American (or Western) made components as possible?

The world is bifurcating in two trade & security blocs, we are in early days of the second cold war and it's important that the Western world rebuilds its supply chain.
They design the boards using American software bought from a company based in NY. The components are made in China and other countries, brought here, and then put together.
 
They are so far behind the AI game that they either need to buy OpenAI to stay relevant or pull out a miracle.

Would like to know what you mean by saying "they are so far behind" that they need to pull out a miracle?

No one in AI making money, and in all likelihood, there is going to be a tremendous contraction/consolidation coming.

Yes, AI is a fundamental technology for the future, but I really struggle to see how Apple has lost the race already.
 
Is this just assembly from Chinese components or do they use as much American (or Western) made components as possible?

The world is bifurcating in two trade & security blocs, we are in early days of the second cold war and it's important that the Western world rebuilds its supply chain.
Well, the chips are made by TSMC, I would guess, so not Chinese, but also not US sourced, as for the rest, probably diverse countries, including China for the mainboard, I would guess, with components from elsewhere.
 
Is this just assembly from Chinese components or do they use as much American (or Western) made components as possible?

The world is bifurcating in two trade & security blocs, we are in early days of the second cold war and it's important that the Western world rebuilds its supply chain.

I doubt they use all American (or Western) made components. TSMC has a fab in Arizona that can supply SoCs for that plant. It currently can only produce chips using their N4 (4nm) process, which translates to M2 family chips. I found an article from last year that says the first servers to be produced in Houston would be based on M2-Ultra. So maybe the core of the system is American made.
 
Tim Cook “Apple’s American-made advanced servers are now shipping from our new Houston facility to Apple data centers!”

Does he actually mean, “Assembled in America”…

There’s a big difference and companies tend to use the terms synonymously as marketing tactics in order to appeal to certain groups.

Now if Apple could only roll out the AI features they previewed during WWDC 2024, and promised with iOS 18. Siri is still Siri, Apple AI on the surface is elementary at best and iOS 26 has multiple issues.
 
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