Technology media Wccftech reported yesterday (December 15) that Apple is deepening its "vertical integration" strategy, not limited to consumer electronics, but also extending to core computing infrastructure, accelerating the development of its first self-designed AI server chip codenamed "Baltra".

The report indicates that this self-developed project has already started, and Broadcom was chosen as a key partner, responsible for overcoming core network transmission technology. The chip is expected to be officially put into use only in 2027, seen as a crucial step for Apple to reduce its reliance on NVIDIA chips.

GPU chip (7)

"Inference-First" Strategy and Architecture Design

The "Baltra" chip is not designed for versatility, but rather focuses precisely on the "AI Inference" segment.

According to reports, Apple currently rents Google's customized 3-trillion-parameter Gemini model at a cost of $1 billion per year to power the cloud-based "Apple Intelligence" service. Therefore, "Baltra" does not need to handle the massive computational demands required for model training, but instead uses all its performance to "execute", quickly processing user commands using existing models (such as writing emails or Siri requests).

Based on the "inference-first" strategy, the architecture of "Baltra" will be completely different from traditional training chips. Inference chips will emphasize **"low latency" and "high concurrency throughput"**. Apple and Broadcom will focus on optimizing the chip's INT8 (8-bit integer) and other low-precision mathematical operations, which can significantly reduce energy consumption and greatly improve response speed on the user end.

In terms of the supply chain, the chip is likely to use TSMC's advanced 3nm "N3E" process, and the design work is expected to be completed within the next 12 months.

Building an Unbreakable Competitive Barrier

The media pointed out that from terminal devices (A/M series chips) to cloud server, the development of "Baltra" is Apple's effort to control every key technology node, aiming to build an unbreakable competitive barrier.

Aside from the well-known A series and M series chips, Apple is accelerating the expansion of its self-designed chip empire, actively deploying other key chips, such as the 5G baseband chip C1, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip N1