Report: Apple Asks Google to Run Siri on Its Servers

[Korito]

It’s sad and laughable to see how die hard macrumors fanbois do not understand a thing about world of computing. Not SaaS, not collocation, not how security works in those, nothing. To keep it short, Google will not be able to go near the servers unless Apple allows it (for various reasons), let alone access them.
One other thing is that google has such a massive infrastructure all around the world that everyone is using their datacenters one way or another. You would be surprised.
Should I now talk about network infrastructure big corporations own? Not just local but intercontinental?
So, relax kids, it’s gonna be fine. Your dull and uninteresting conversations with Siri will stay in Apple hands to sell them further.

 

[peter2]

I'm really tired of Apple pretending they can catch up at this point. Why make all devices have tons of RAM, just send the voice over to servers that Google runs for Apple. Apple just need to pay them and get it over with. I really don't want to wait for iOS 34. It's about to be two years since they announced Apple AI at the WWDC. How many more should we wait?

All devices have ton of RAM? On what planet are you living?

My 2019 Mac Pro has 1.5TB, my 2013 Mac Pro has 128GB, my 2010 Mac Pro has 128GB -- yes, 16 years ago!, my 2009 xServe has 96GB of RAM. But after the 2019 Mac Pro model, the amount of RAM in Apple products was a joke (with a small + points for the Studio M3 Ultra, but 512GB max in 2026 is also quite laughable).

 

[CarAnalogy]

So much for “Privacy. That’s iPhone.”

So Siri is going to be Gemini renamed? At this point why not just buy a Pixel then and use Gemini.

First thought was this doesn't sound good for privacy.

To these and a thousand others: This is like saying you can't trust MacRumors because their servers run on AWS and Bezos is a jerk. I don't know if they do and he's not a big enough jerk that people care, apparently, but that's the principle.

The way these cloud infrastructures are set up is supposed to be that even the cloud provider can't access the data. Especially at the enterprise level Apple would be buying at. They'd have their own dedicated racks and cages.

They already do this for thousands of businesses, their entire business model is providing private compute resources.

It makes sense for Apple to do this for the same reason it makes sense for all those businesses. Why spend billions building a data center oneself when these companies have already done it far better?

 

[peter2]

Because Nuvia as gone on to become a king-pin in the server space? Nope. The server business is 'insanely great' hasn't particularly worked out for Ampere either.

Nuvia managed to get bought to build SoC that compete in the exact same space that Apple choice to sit to. How dos that prove Apple wrong?

Arm itself was covering the server core space themselves. That is a major reason why it got precarious for Ampere. Use Arm cores and have smaller differentiation gap. Use enitrely custom cores and see most hypercalars just 'buy off the shelf' from Arm.

Apple cloud services at scale run at AWS/Google Cloud/Azure/Cloudflare/Akamai ( Apple private relay services run from Cloudflare/Akamai etc. not Apple data centers. ). There are Linus/Arm core servers at the base of all of those vendors Apple can use and didn't spend a dime on a server process.

A server chip that simply just provisioned PCI-e lanes to Nuvia chips? How is that suppose to get traction when Nvidia rolls out their own Arm cores integrated with their custom bus to their GPU cores? Nuvia nor Ampere has special magic there. Why would Apple be any different?




Would happen anyway if there was no viable product. What is the software stack that would make this? No MacOS Server ( Apple cloud services are all mainly Linux. )




Even with all the hiccups with "Apple AI" phone, mac, iPad sales are all up. How are they a decade back in those markets? In terms of AI compute the Arm cores have extremely little to do with the current situation. [ At Qualcomm Nuvia brought almost nothing to covers NPU/GPU areas which Qualcomm was already doing. ]

DGX Spark vs Mac Studio where Studio is a decade behind in hardware?

DGX Spark is a relatively cheap toy that exists solely so that people can learn to use the software stack that runs on the datacenter supercomputers from nVidia.

 

[Powerbooky]

I've read that Mac mini M4's have gone up in sales since the beginning of 2026. It is said that people are buying one or multiple units to run their own AI, to avoid the high fees for cloud AI. What if Apple's Siri/AI roadmap is just temporarily using Google's cloud services to get things running faster and then later move their own hardware again?

 

[Dave245]

To these and a thousand others: This is like saying you can't trust MacRumors because their servers run on AWS and Bezos is a jerk. I don't know if they do and he's not a big enough jerk that people care, apparently, but that's the principle.

The way these cloud infrastructures are set up is supposed to be that even the cloud provider can't access the data. Especially at the enterprise level Apple would be buying at. They'd have their own dedicated racks and cages.

They already do this for thousands of businesses, their entire business model is providing private compute resources.

It makes sense for Apple to do this for the same reason it makes sense for all those businesses. Why spend billions building a data center oneself when these companies have already done it far better?

My point is it’s not about privacy, what I'm saying is Apple should be building their own and not relying on Google’s Gemini. Apple should have has this figured out by now, they were the first with an assistant back in 2011 when Siri was announced mere months after Steve Job’s death.

 

[subjonas]

Siri has never been the reason anyone does or does not purchase an iPhone.

Not according to the people who claimed to have bought their iPhone 16 Pro because of the Siri intelligence commercial🤷‍♂️.
But is that really why they bought their new iPhone 16 Pro? Really? They wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't for that feature? So this sudden apparent hope in Siri has nothing to do with the possibility of getting something out of a lawsuit?
I'm very skeptical. So I tend to agree with you.

 

[TruthAboveAllElse]

Siri has never been the reason anyone does or does not purchase an iPhone.

How quickly we forget the 4s 😢

 

[deconstruct60]

DGX Spark is a relatively cheap toy that exists solely so that people can learn to use the software stack that runs on the datacenter supercomputers from nVidia.

And yet the recent AI 'fad' of the month was OpenClaw ( security and privacy flaws included) that primarily runs locally. There are some factors related to training that keeps it more cloud/datacenter grounded. But inference? Requiring that to be located in a multimillion dollar supercomputer datacenter isn't aways required. Or even desirable. ( Deploy 400,000 Mac Studios into various locations . No electric grid disruption. No farms bulldozed to create new datacenter , etc. ) Just plug into some normal household outlets and done.

It is a 'toy' in part because it has a Mediatek memory controller designed mainly for Arm cores attached to a GPU chiplet/tile that has much higher bandwidth requirements. Apple's solution is more better balanced and focus. That is in part because they are not chasing 50 different markets.

Some companies like OpenAI want the the spectrum of AI to all be based on the most expensive hardware possible because that is an effective barrier to entry for them. They drumbeat the narrative that if not spending crazy high amounts of money then not really doing AI. They have access to a high flow of money and that keeps the 'club' of other folks small, if not smallest.

Apple was not a large player in the datacenter/supercomputer business. AI was not going to change that. Apple jumping eyeball deep into the server business can't be whitewashed with AI hype. It is a very bad fit, that isn't in their core compentence stack.

 

[TruthAboveAllElse]

Not according to the people who claimed to have bought their iPhone 16 Pro because of the Siri intelligence commercial🤷‍♂️.
But is that really why they bought their new iPhone 16 Pro? Really? They wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't for that feature? So this sudden apparent hope in Siri has nothing to do with the possibility of getting something out of a lawsuit?
I'm very skeptical. So I tend to agree with you.

I bought the 16 (not Pro, but same principle) specifically because of Apple Intelligence. I had a 13 mini, and had no desire to get a larger screen. It worked fine for me, battery health was good, etc. But I traded it in because of what was promised.

 

[HouseLannister]

So nearly two years later and Apple still is planning the server strategy. Did they just realize that they were late on this?

 

[Plutonius]

That should secure peoples privacy 🙂 /S

 

[rp2011]

Because Nuvia as gone on to become a king-pin in the server space? Nope. The server business is 'insanely great' hasn't particularly worked out for Ampere either.

Nuvia managed to get bought to build SoC that compete in the exact same space that Apple choice to sit to. How dos that prove Apple wrong?

Arm itself was covering the server core space themselves. That is a major reason why it got precarious for Ampere. Use Arm cores and have smaller differentiation gap. Use enitrely custom cores and see most hypercalars just 'buy off the shelf' from Arm.

Apple cloud services at scale run at AWS/Google Cloud/Azure/Cloudflare/Akamai ( Apple private relay services run from Cloudflare/Akamai etc. not Apple data centers. ). There are Linus/Arm core servers at the base of all of those vendors Apple can use and didn't spend a dime on a server process.

A server chip that simply just provisioned PCI-e lanes to Nuvia chips? How is that suppose to get traction when Nvidia rolls out their own Arm cores integrated with their custom bus to their GPU cores? Nuvia nor Ampere has special magic there. Why would Apple be any different?




Would happen anyway if there was no viable product. What is the software stack that would make this? No MacOS Server ( Apple cloud services are all mainly Linux. )




Even with all the hiccups with "Apple AI" phone, mac, iPad sales are all up. How are they a decade back in those markets? In terms of AI compute the Arm cores have extremely little to do with the current situation. [ At Qualcomm Nuvia brought almost nothing to covers NPU/GPU areas which Qualcomm was already doing. ]

DGX Spark vs Mac Studio where Studio is a decade behind in hardware?

Yeah, but that doesn't say anything about the Nuvia technology. It speaks to what Qualcomm wanted. Qualcomm wanted to turn their work into an alternative to Apple silicon in consumer products, and is why ARM filled a lawsuit against them.

 

[deconstruct60]

All devices have ton of RAM? On what planet are you living?

My 2019 Mac Pro has 1.5TB, my 2013 Mac Pro has 128GB, my 2010 Mac Pro has 128GB --

Your Mac Pro having 1TB of RAM installed in no way shape or form prescribes that All Mac Pros have 200+GB of RAM installed. That assertion about 'all devices' is more about the base RAM capacity; not the maximum RAM capacity.
The base RAM of Mac Pro 2019 was 32GB ( two orders of magnitude less than 1,000 GB levels. )

" ... Apple says the new ‌Mac Pro‌ starts at $5,999 in the United States with an eight-core Intel Xeon W processor, 32GB of DDR4 ECC RAM, AMD Radeon Pro 580X graphics, and 256GB of SSD storage and will be available to order in the fall. ..."

Apple Reveals All-New Mac Pro With Up to 28-Core Processor and 1.5TB of RAM, Starting at $5,999

Apple today at its WWDC 2019 keynote unveiled its long-awaited Mac Pro redesign. The all-new Mac Pro is an absolute powerhouse with up to 28-core Intel Xeon processors, up to 1.5TB of ECC RAM, up to 4TB of SSD storage, up to AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo graphics with 64GB of HBM2 memory, and eight...

www.macrumors.com

To get to 1,000 GB (1TB) levels of RAM on a Mac PRo 2019 you had to also buy an Intel chip variant with a very hefty "> 1TB RAM" tax on its price. Apple just threw they markup on top of that. That options was a much about sucking more money out of buyers pockets than it was about the RAM capacity's utility. [ Apple did NOT sell the more affordable SoC core count version without the tax if you happened to not need that level of RAM capacity. ]

 

[Churchman]

It’s sad and laughable to see how die hard macrumors fanbois do not understand a thing about world of computing. Not SaaS, not collocation, not how security works in those, nothing. To keep it short, Google will not be able to go near the servers unless Apple allows it (for various reasons), let alone access them.
One other thing is that google has such a massive infrastructure all around the world that everyone is using their datacenters one way or another. You would be surprised.
Should I now talk about network infrastructure big corporations own? Not just local but intercontinental?
So, relax kids, it’s gonna be fine. Your dull and uninteresting conversations with Siri will stay in Apple hands to sell them further.

While I hear you... and happily admit that you are more expert here than I am...

I can't help but recall that Google once stated that it stood for "Don't be evil."... then removed that dictum to actually be evil.

I did a Google search of data related controversies associated with Google. I recall some of the news on this list, but... Google has faced numerous controversies regarding data privacy, including allegations of collecting user data without consent, even when privacy settings are enabled. Notable incidents include the tracking of users in "Incognito Mode" and the continued collection of location data despite users opting out of such features, raising significant concerns about user trust and transparency. This is copy and paste of what the search told me.

"Google will not be able to go near..."
- Google will go near whatever they elect to go near. Their prior actions say that they will do exactly that.

"One other thing is that google has such a massive infrastructure all around the world..."
- Exactly. Google is so massive. Who is watching the watchers? If a company wants plausible deniability, being a massive infrastructure with 1000's of people watching or conveniently not watching... means Google can go near whatever they elect to go near.

"So, relax kids, it’s gonna be fine."
- Yes. Because Google has a history of not being evil.

 

[teaneedz]

Yep. Shame Apple's potential hookup with Anthropic fell through. Their philosophy and Apple's were more closely aligned. The reason Anthropic even exists in the first place is because its owners didn't like the way things were going at Open AI.

apple would have gained so much good will by just announcing the anthropic partnership, more so now, that I would have applauded and patiently waited longer for the implementation. now, I could care less and will likely turn off apple intelligence and siri completely. claude and perplexity are my go-to solutions now. RIP siri, regardless what you transform into.

 

[montuori]

- Exactly. Google is so massive. Who is watching the watchers?

Well, you can start here: https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/offerings#/

Google Cloud is not Google Search. There is a lot of revenue riding on the cloud offerings being secure in exactly the ways they claim.

 

[JamesMay82]

Yeah I’m not a fan of google! Maybe I’m ill informed but this would put me off using this.

To be fair it just made me read that my iCloud data could be on google servers as well.

I think I’m going g to come away from the cloud

 

[carrrrrlos]

So much for “Privacy. That’s iPhone.”

I was just going to say - Been waiting a few years for an announcement like this ('selling user base info') - actually thought it was going to happen sooner w/ Tim at the helm. Tim is not a visionary, just making money for the shareholders - that’s who he answers to.

 

[Rradcircless]

Apple now wants to be prepared for a potential surge in AI use on its devices when the more powerful, Gemini-based version of Siri debuts later this year, motivating the request for Google to run Siri directly on its servers.

I’m not an expert in this field at all but this last paragraph screams “ANOTHER DELAY INCOMING”.

 

[mdcmdcmdc]

For those who may not remember, Google made the original iOS maps app, but they and Apple had a falling out because Google wanted more personal data about the users and Apple said no. The result was Apple rolling their own maps app, which took years to reach a base level of reliability, with Tim Cook even telling iOS users to use Google Maps at one point. Will history repeat?

 

[transpo1]

The issue with your statement is that it implies that Google somehow has access to Apple customer data just because Apple might opt to store data blobs on Google servers.

That is exactly what I'm saying: this is a solved problem. Trusting Google is not a requirement at all. Apple can absolutely store data is Google data-center with Google having no way to access it. Customers like this bring their own encryption keys, for example.

This is a solved problem. Apple data could be co-located with data that Google has access to within the same data center, but that still does not mean that Google all of a sudden has access to start selling your information to data brokers.

Sure hope you’re right! 👍

 

[mdcmdcmdc]

This feels a lot more like risk-mitigation and cost-savings.

I think it's about trying to show investors and tech industry analysts, "See? We really are serious about AI."

 

[burgman]

WHICH COMPANY data centers? “Their’s”? Which company is that? Google or Apple? English is super imprecise in this article.

I didn’t have any issue reading and understanding the last paragraph of the article, why did you? Linking to a paywalled article is not helpful.

 

[Tagbert]

So much for “Privacy. That’s iPhone.”

FYI @Will Co

You will glad to know that Google has their own special server setup that closely matches Apple's Private Cloud Compute and is designed to maintain privacy.

Google is introducing its own version of Apple’s private AI cloud compute

Google is introducing its own version of Apple’s private AI cloud compute

On-device AI processing just doesn’t cut it anymore.

www.theverge.com