Apple reportedly buys AI startup ahead of its own push

Apple has reportedly acquired a Canadian artificial intelligence startup, ahead of the company’s planned rollout later this year.

Bloomberg said that Apple AAPL, -1.20% acquired DarwinAI, which helps to make AI systems smaller and faster, and has added dozens of its employees to its AI team.

That would seem to fit its own efforts: A research paper written by Apple employees published last year focused on a way to run a large language model with limited memory.

Apple didn’t immediately return a request for comment, and told other media outlets that it buys smaller companies from time to time without specifically confirming this deal.

CEO Tim Cook told analysts on a conference call that the company will make an announcement on artificial intelligence later in the year. “Our MO, if you will, has always been to do work and then talk about work and not to get out in front of ourselves. And so we’re going to hold that to this as well. But we’ve got some things that we’re incredibly excited about that we’ll be talking about later this year,” he said.

The report on DarwinAI didn’t disclose financial terms. According to Crunchbase, DarwinAI had 12 investors, including the venture arm of Honeywell.

Apple shares rose Thursday, but have declined 10% this year.