First thoughts on Apple’s Darwin AI buy – it’s great

We learned today that Apple has acquired Canada’s Darwin AI, a company that creates what I’d term as a machine vision intelligence for use in industrial/manufacturing sectors.

The news comes as use of AI in manufacturing begins to proliferate, even as mobile networks  build wireless technologies (network slicing, SD-WAN, etc) designed to support large numbers of connected devices across private networks built for resilience against hacking and also to deliver high QoS levels. That matters, as it means the network infrastructure to support highly sophisticated smart factories (and other industrial concerns) is already slotting into place. To be honest, it’s already there – just google 5G + Port of Antwerp to get some ideas around this.

Getting smart, gaining growth

The emergence of smart tech at the same time as that of super-smart GenAI are two pillars in a tech evolution that will also encompass mobile devices, machine vision intelligence, operating systems and all the other gubbins that makes for our increasingly computer driven world. (I won’t get into the moralities within all this, however – I’m just as fearful of poor AI, AI ownership, and the consolidation of all forms of power as anyone else should be).

As consumer markets become saturated – and they are saturated – and as Apple kicks into the enterprise ecosystem, the company needs to continue going for growth. It also needs to dance ahead of the increasingly volatile regulatory environment, which means it must dance where the music hasn’t happened yet.

So, what’s all this got to do with Darwin AI?

On first sight it seems to be this:

Part of what DarwinAI was doing was to build a core tech that makes AI systems smaller and faster – that’s essential for AI at the edge, not in thrall to info-leaking cloud data processing. And I think that’s part of the focus. Apple wants to build a GenAI type tech that doesn’t track you.

But, what if…???

But I’m also interested in another speculation. Darwin AI made a tool that uses AI to do really important things like check product quality on the manufacturing line. The reporting says the tech can visually inspect components during manufacturing. What that means is you have a machine that watches for faults as they go down the production line.

Now the IoT, smart industry, Industry 4/5.0 or whatever the nomenclature right now happens to be is a real deal. I’ve written before somewhen, potentially somewhens concerning how smart factories are a real thing. Things are already being made almost entirely by automata. Humans are destined to just do the fiddly bits, and even then that destiny (to my tired, jaundiced and increasingly politically antipathetic eyes) seems temporary. So, get ready for that.

In business terms, it means that in declining/stultified consumer markets Apple’s chase for growth inevitably leads it to intensify its reach to the enterprise – and that’s gonna mean a lot more focus on what the enterprise needs.

Management blessings

Throw a Vision Pro device into the equation and you have one of the most powerful fault reporting and remediation systems the manufacturing industry has ever seen. All developed to be secure by design. All based on tech people already use in their daily lives. A real management blessing enabling execs to take a look and make a diagnosis of events on the factory floor from anywhere they happen to be. And all made by Apple.  But, as I’ve been saying for so many years now, Apple is in the enterprise. I’m genuinely curious to see what happens next.

PS: I think it is really very interesting that before the news emerged from the usual place all Apple news emerges from these days (boring), the company seems – stress seems, I don’t know for a fact – to have managed to delete both the YouTube and Twitter accounts belonging to the company it just acquired.

Which, to my tired (etc.) eyes strongly suggests something really is up.

WWDC is going to get more exciting by the day from this point.

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