Apple turns to Nvidia and Google to power new Siri AI push

Apple used its Worldwide Developers Conference to show that its AI strategy is becoming more collaborative, and more ambitious, than many expected. The company paired a redesigned Siri with a deeper reliance on outside partners, signaling that it is willing to borrow compute and infrastructure to speed up its push in consumer AI.

Apple said its most advanced model, Apple Foundation Model Cloud Pro, will run in the cloud on Nvidia GPUs and is comparable to Google’s Gemini frontier models. The same presentation included demos of a Siri that could move back and forth with users, check concert dates, set reminders and help with directions. For a company that has spent years promising a more capable voice assistant, the display was one of the clearest signs yet that Apple is trying to make up ground in AI that people actually use every day.

The new approach also sharpened Apple’s contrast with larger rivals that have treated AI as a race for bigger infrastructure and larger models. Apple software chief Craig Federighi argued that some companies seem to be pushing AI because it is fashionable, while Apple says it is focused on features that help users. That message fit neatly with the company’s long-standing privacy-first brand, even as Apple confirmed that some Apple Intelligence features will officially run on Nvidia chips and that its infrastructure will extend into Google’s cloud.

The strategic reversal is striking. Apple built its reputation on tight vertical control, designing the hardware, software and services stack in-house whenever possible. Now the company is leaning on rivals and partners for some of the most valuable layers in AI: chips, cloud capacity and model-scale infrastructure. That does not necessarily mean Apple is giving up control. It may instead be trying to gain flexibility, buying time and technical muscle while keeping the consumer experience and privacy promises under its own roof.

Still, the announcement made clear that the center of gravity in AI has shifted. The competition is no longer only about who can train the largest standalone model. It is also about who can combine Nvidia’s chips, Google’s cloud reach and Apple’s distribution across billions of devices into something that feels useful, private and immediate. For Apple, the new Siri push is both a catch-up move and a bet that partnership can be a strength rather than a sign of dependence.