[pretext-1]

If they wanted to, they could throw massive amounts of cash on it like Google and Facebook are, with the latter poaching Apple employees with 200$ million pay packages: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-09/meta-poac...

But why on earth would they do that? It's both cheaper and safer to buy Google's model, with whom they already have a longstanding relationship. Examples include the search engine deal, and using Google Cloud infrastructure for iCloud and other services. Their new "private cloud compute" already runs on GCP too, perfect! Buying Gemini just makes sense, for now. Wait a few years until the technology becomes more mature/stable and then replace it with their own for a reasonable price.

[soperj]

Why did they even have Ruoming Pang on staff? Because they were trying. Failing, and then saying we're waiting is objectively hilarious.

[asadotzler]

No, they couldn't, because all current and future ethe training hardware is already tied up by contracts from the frontier labs. Apple could not simply buy its way in given how constricted the supply is.

[pretext-1]

You can rent data centers for this stuff nowadays and Apple can easily outbid any competitor.