Dive Brief:
- Apple is opening up third party access to its Private Cloud Compute in support of Apple Intelligence workloads through a partnership with Google Cloud and Nvidia, according to a Monday blog post. Apple will run Apple Intelligence — its personal intelligence system for iPhones, iPads and Mac devices — on Google Cloud as part of the deal.
- While its core PCC privacy and security requirements remain the same, the implementation is changing to support high demand tasks such as agentic tool use and complex reasoning, the company said. PCC on Google Cloud will be powered by Google’s Titan chip, Nvidia Confidential Computing with Nvidia GPUs and Intel CPUs with TDX.
- In a separate Monday announcement, Apple said it collaborated with Google, using its Gemini AI models, to build Apple Foundation Models that power Apple Intelligence features. The latest Apple AI models will run on devices and servers using PCC.
Dive Insight:
As Apple rolls out updated AI features to its users, expanding PCC to Google Cloud reflects the company’s pursuit of compute power in support of intensive workloads.
At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2026 taking place this week, the company indicated it is focused on bringing AI capabilities to users through everyday apps and tools, said Tom Mainelli, group VP of devices and consumer research at IDC.
“Some of those users will be enterprise employees,” Mainelli told CIO Dive in an email. “As developers build Apple Intelligence capabilities into their enterprise apps, we’ll see its impact on the commercial side grow.”
Global cloud spending on infrastructure services saw a 29% year over year increase in the final quarter of 2025 as hyperscalers funneled money into building out AI infrastructure and increasing compute capacity, according to a report from analyst firm Omdia. Spend is expected to increase again in 2026 as enterprise AI adoption shifts toward agentic.
Apple Intelligence is largely free to use on Apple devices, as well as AI services that companies regularly pay for, such as voice-to-text transcription, proofreading and document drafting, Mainelli said.
“For companies with Apple hardware in their installed base, or those considering buying Apple hardware, that could be a significant cost savings across the company,” he said.
Mainelli said Apple’s strong privacy and security focus could give enterprise IT decision-makers a “differentiating reason to consider Apple hardware for AI workloads.”
Ed Anderson, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, said the move doubles down on Apple’s longstanding focus on ensuring data privacy. As their ecosystem expands, the Google Cloud and Nvidia collaboration extends compute power while allowing Apple to maintain its privacy commitments.
Though Apple isn’t explicitly setting out to satisfy enterprise security requirements, it will likely be something IT decision-makers pay attention to, he added.
“There’s no doubt that enterprise organizations highly value security and data protection,” Anderson said. “Of course these Apple devices, among other devices, are all being used in enterprise environments. So the notion that Apple is extending extra effort to ensure privacy and data protection of course makes them more attractive and usable for enterprise environments.”
