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

on chips designed by Google rather than industry leader Nvidia ( NVDA )

to build two key components of its artificial intelligence

software infrastructure for its forthcoming suite of AI tools

and features, an Apple ( AAPL ) research paper published on Monday

showed.

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

used 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 ) did not comment on Monday.

The iPhone maker said 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 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, while 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.

The Cupertino, California-based company's stock ticked down

0.1% to $218.24 in regular trading on Monday.

(Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by

Matthew Lewis and Varun H K)