Apple has allegedly approached Foxconn and Lenovo to build AI servers based on Apple Silicon

Apple plans to use its own Apple Silicon processors for its AI servers, which will be used, among other things, to power its Apple Intelligence services in the data center, reports Nikkei. The company has approached Foxconn and Lenovo to build the machines and has specifically asked them to make the servers in Taiwan. While one of Apple’s reasons for assembling these machines in Taiwan is to reduce its reliance on China, another is to tap into the talent and R&D resources that Foxconn leverages for its Nvidia-based AI servers. 

Apple is exploring the production of AI servers in Taiwan at Foxconn’s facilities to bolster its computing abilities for new generative AI features across its devices. However, Foxconn, Apple’s primary manufacturing partner, also happens to be the world’s largest maker of AI servers, primarily making machines based on Nvidia’s GPUs, such as the H100 and H200. For now, Foxconn’s capacity in Taiwan is fairly limited, as the company is gearing up to start volume production of GB200-based machines featuring the Blackwell architecture. This is reportedly one of the reasons why Apple wants to produce its AI machines in Taiwan: to leverage the experience that Foxconn has gained while working on Nvidia projects. 

“One of the reasons Apple wants Foxconn to make servers in Taiwan is its hope to tap into the engineering talent and R&D resources that work on Nvidia projects,” a source with knowledge of the matter told Nikkei. Neither Apple nor Foxconn commented on the report. 

Apple’s AI approach differs from that of cloud service providers like Microsoft and Amazon, as it focuses more on AI inference rather than training large-scale language models. Therefore, Apple will not need servers with sophisticated technologies like liquid cooling. Also, since Apple’s AI servers are intended for internal use, the scale of production will be relatively small compared to Nvidia’s GB200 AI machines. That poses a problem, too, as companies like Foxconn and…