The Information is out with an interesting report about how Apple has considered spinning up its own developer cloud services, in a move that would put it against some of its competitors’ biggest revenue streams. Here are the details.
该信息发布了一份有趣的报告，内容涉及苹果如何考虑启动自己的开发人员云服务，这将使它与某些竞争对手最大的收入来源相对。这是细节。
Project ACDC
ACDC项目
As reported by Aaron Tilley, Apple’s Project ACDC (which stands for Apple chips in data centers) would not be that different from Amazon’s AWS, Microsoft’s Azure, or Google’s Cloud Platform:
正如Aaron Tilley报道的那样，Apple的Project ACDC（代表数据中心的苹果芯片）与亚马逊的AWS，Microsoft的Azure或Google的Cloud Platform没有什么不同：
“The idea discussed was for Apple to rent out servers running on Apple’s own chips, said three people involved in the effort. That reflects Apple’s successful development of its own chips, which have given its phones and laptops a big edge over rival devices—and which are also now being used in Apple’s data centers for some artificial intelligence services.”
“讨论的想法是让苹果在苹果自己的筹码上运行的服务器出租，这三个参与了E效的人。反映了苹果公司成功开发自己的芯片，这使其手机和笔记本电脑比竞争对手的设备具有很大的优势，现在也用于某些人工智能服务中的苹果数据中心。”
According to the report, Apple has considered this in the “past few years”, and would offer the service as a cheaper and more efficient in-house alternative to other cloud competitors.
根据该报告，苹果在“过去几年”中考虑了这一点，并将提供该服务作为更便宜，更高效的内部替代品，替代了其他云竞争对手。
The internal path to ACDC
ACDC的内部路径
One big reason Apple was even entertaining the idea is performance. Executives believed Apple silicon could offer better AI inference performance at a lower cost, especially as demand ramps up for efficient, high-volume AI workloads:
苹果甚至娱乐这个想法的一个重要原因是表现。高管们认为，苹果硅可以以较低的成本提供更好的AI推理性能，尤其是在需求增加高效，大批量的AI工作量时：
Apple’s chips are efficient at running many types of inference, which means using pre-trained AI models to interpret new information, such as computer vision found in the Vision Pro.
Apple的芯片在运行多种类型的推理方面非常有效，这意味着使用预训练的AI模型来解释新信息，例如Vision Pro中发现的计算机视觉。
Apple started using its own chips inside its data centers with the launch of Private Cloud Compute (the system that powers server-side requests for Apple Intelligence), then expanded it to the Siri team:
苹果通过启动私有云计算（为服务器端请求苹果智能的系统提供动力），开始在其数据中心内使用自己的芯片，然后将其扩展到Siri团队：
“Siri was the first team to try out servers powered by Mac chips for text-to-speech capabilities. The servers provided a performance improvement in accuracy and cost reduction compared to traditional servers with Intel chips, said people involved in the project.”
“ Siri是第一支尝试由Mac芯片提供动力的服务器以获得文本到语音的功能。与具有Intel芯片的传统服务器相比，服务器提供了准确性和降低成本的性能提高，并说。”
Soon, services like Photos and Apple Music also got access, to improve performance in areas like search.
很快，照片和苹果音乐等服务也可以访问，以提高搜索等领域的性能。
Apple even explored offering this same cloud setup to outside developers, without spinning up an enterprise sales force. Instead, the existing Developer Relations team would manage access, creating a more Apple-like developer experience than what AWS or Azure offer today.
苹果甚至探索了向外部开发人员提供相同的云设置，而无需旋转企业销售部队。取而代之的是，现有的开发人员关系团队将管理访问权限，创造比当今AWS或Azure提供的更像苹果的开发人员体验。
Status: Unknown
状态：未知
The Information says that Project ACDC’s status is unclear, since Michael Abbott, the Apple executive who championed the idea, left the company in 2023. The report states that while discussions continued into the first half of 2024, it’s currently not known whether the initiative is still alive.
该信息说，ACDC项目的地位尚不清楚，因为苹果主管迈克尔·雅培（Michael Abbott）于2023年离开了该公司。该报告指出，尽管讨论一直持续到2024年上半年，但目前尚不知道该计划是否还活着。
Of course, all of this also ties into Apple’s broader services ambitions. As App Store fees face regulatory pressure and its $20 billion Google search deal sits in the DOJ’s crosshairs, Apple is looking for new ways to grow services revenue.
当然，所有这些都与苹果的更广泛的服务野心联系在一起。随着应用商店的费用面临监管压力，其200亿美元的Google搜索交易处于司法贴的十字准线中，苹果正在寻找新的方法来增加服务收入。
For Apple, a developer-focused cloud built on Apple silicon would be a natural extension of that strategy. For developers, this could mean not having to rely entirely on costly GPU instances from third-party cloud providers.
对于苹果而言，以开发人员为中心的云建立在苹果硅上将是该策略的自然扩展。对于开发人员而言，这可能意味着不必完全依靠第三方云提供商的昂贵GPU实例。
Regardless, today’s report shows just how seriously Apple is thinking about turning its silicon advantage into new sources of revenue. This probably won’t be the last time we hear about this.
无论如何，今天的报告表明，苹果正在考虑将其硅优势转变为新收入来源的认真认真。这可能不会是我们最后一次听到此消息。
Are you a developer? Which cloud provider do you use? Would something like Project ACDC be appealing to you? Let is know in the comments.
您是开发人员吗？您使用哪个云提供商？诸如ACDC项目之类的事情会吸引您吗？让我们在评论中知道。
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