Apple Private Cloud Compute Curiosities
Apple announced a significant development at this year’s WWDC: the creation of its own cloud infrastructure named “Private Cloud Compute” for securely handling certain Apple Intelligence requests. As an IT professional working in data center technologies, I have a few questions that remain unanswered even after watching John Gruber’s The Talk Show Live:
-
What CPU is used in each server? I wonder if Apple is utilizing high-end versions of its Apple Silicon chips. It’s worth noting that there was no update to the Mac Studio this year. Is Apple diverting M3 Max or M3 Ultra production to build its Private Cloud Compute data centers (which currently feature 32 Neural Engine cores in the M2 Ultra)?
-
What type of case design is Apple using for the servers? Are they modified versions of the Mac mini, or are they using a rack-mount variant of the Mac Studio?
-
Is Apple deploying data centers only in the United States or across multiple continents? I suspect the latter, for the sake of redundancy and capacity.
I expect that sometime in the future, perhaps at WWDC 2025, Apple may reveal details about the first year of Apple Intelligence in a short video. We’ll have to wait and see.