Apple Acquires AI Startup Xnor.ai

Apple has acquired artificial intelligence startup Xnor.ai for around $200 million, reports GeekWire.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources said Apple paid an amount similar to what was paid for Turi, in the range of $200 million. Apple and Xnor.ai didn’t immediately respond to our inquiries, but we’ll update this report with anything we hear. When we visited Xnor’s office in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood this morning, a move was clearly in progress — presumably to Apple’s Seattle offices.

The Seattle-based company specializes in putting AI on devices rather than in the cloud. For example, its technology powers the Person Detection feature on the popular Wyze Cam security camera. Xnor was able to detect and classify a person in the frame for Wyze without requiring new expensive hardware or cloud processing.


“We’ve been able to scale AI out of the cloud to every device out there,” says co-founder Ali Farhadi.

Here's how the company describes itself:

Xnor.ai is helping reshape the way we live, work and play by enabling AI everywhere, on every device. As the company that first proved it was possible to run state-of-the-art AI on resource strained compute platforms, today Xnor helps organizations add AI functionality to their products — powering a new generation of smart solutions for existing and new markets. Xnor’s patented edge AI technology has upended traditional AI, resulting in billions of devices and products being AI-optimized — from battery operated cameras, to complex manufacturing machinery, and automobiles. Xnor’s mission is to make AI accessible by freeing it from the cloud, data centers and the limits of internet connectivity and enabling a world where AI is available in billions of products, everywhere for everyone.

The content has already been removed from Xnor's website but you can check out the video below to learn more about it.


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