SAN FRANCISCO, July 29 (Reuters) - Apple ( AAPL ) relied

on chips designed by Alphabet's Google rather than

industry leader Nvidia ( NVDA ) to build its new

artificial-intelligence software infrastructure that will power

its forthcoming suite of AI tools and features, according to an

Apple ( AAPL ) research paper it published on Monday.

Apple's ( AAPL ) decision to rely on Google's cloud infrastructure is

notable because Nvidia ( NVDA ) produces the most sought-after

AI processors. Including the chips made by Google, Amazon.com ( AMZN )

and other cloud computing companies, Nvidia ( NVDA ) commands

roughly 80% of the market.

In the research paper, Apple ( AAPL ) did not explicitly say that it

uses no Nvidia ( NVDA ) chips, but its description of the hardware and

software infrastructure of its AI tools and features lacked any

mention of Nvidia ( NVDA ) hardware.

Apple ( AAPL ) could not immediately be reached for comment on

Monday.

Apple ( AAPL ) said in the research paper that to train its AI

models, it used two flavors of Google's tensor processing unit

(TPU) that are organized in large clusters of chips. To build

the AI model that will operate on iPhones and other devices,

Apple ( AAPL ) used 2,048 of the TPUv5p chips. For its server AI model,

Apple ( AAPL ) deployed 8,192 TPUv4 processors.

Nvidia ( NVDA ) does not design TPUs but rather focuses its efforts

on so-called graphics processing units (GPUs) that are widely

used for AI efforts.

Unlike Nvidia ( NVDA ), which sells its chips and systems as

standalone products, Google sells access to the TPUs through its

Google Cloud Platform. Customers interested in buying access

must build software through Google's cloud platform in order to

use the chips.

Apple ( AAPL ) is rolling out portions Apple Intelligence to its beta

users this week.

Reuters reported the use of the TPU chips in June but Apple ( AAPL )

did not disclose the full extent of its reliance on Google

hardware until Monday's research paper.

Google did not return a request for comment, and Nvidia ( NVDA )

declined to comment.

Apple's ( AAPL ) engineers said in the paper it would be possible to

make even larger, more sophisticated models with Google's chips,

than the two models it discussed in the paper.

Apple ( AAPL ) unveiled a slew of new AI features at its June

developer conference, including integrating OpenAI's ChatGPT

technology into its software.