Apple acquires privacy-focused artificial intelligence company

Apple reportedly acquired Silk Labs earlier this year. Founded by the former Mozilla tech chief, the company is engaged in developing artificial intelligence with an eye for privacy.

Details of the acquisition have not been disclosed, according to The Information’s report, which relies on a person with knowledge of the acquisition. Silk Labs has a dozen employees and was founded in 2015 by Andreas Gal, who was previously CTO at Mozilla.

Silk Labs focuses on developing lightweight software in the field of artificial intelligence, such as for recognizing images and sounds. The algorithms do not send a continuous stream of information to servers, but only the most important data and anonymised.

The company released a crowdfunded product, Sense, in 2016. This was a smart camera based on the Silk software, which was to serve as the basis for smart home products. Apple has been trying to differentiate itself from its competitors in the area of ​​privacy for some time now. The company also invests in artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, Apple took over Google’s former chief executive for artificial intelligence. He now leads a new team at the company that should combine Siri and machine learning.