Apple discusses AI model technology for iPhone with startup

Apple is in discussions with a Silicon Valley startup that claims it can compress advanced artificial intelligence models to a size capable of running directly on iPhones.

PrismML, a Khosla Ventures-backed spinout from the California Institute of Technology, publicly released compressed versions of Alibaba’s open-source Qwen model on Tuesday, News.Az reports, citing CNBC.

The company said it reduced the model from roughly 54 GB to less than 4 GB, allowing all 27 billion of its parameters to run on an iPhone 15 or newer.

PrismML CEO Babak Hassibi told CNBC that Apple and other companies have been evaluating the startup’s models and measuring their speed, energy efficiency and performance on devices.

“They’re really evaluating our technology right now,” Hassibi said of Apple.

He characterized the discussions as very early and said it remains unclear where they will lead, but that “things are progressing nicely.”

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Information previously reported the PrismML breakthrough.

The release comes one day after Apple opened the public beta of iOS 27, giving iPhone owners their first broad access to the company’s long-delayed overhaul of Siri. Apple is trying to make Siri more competitive with assistants from OpenAI and Anthropic while keeping more personal information and AI processing on the device.

The company’s approach could address one of the central constraints facing Apple’s AI strategy. The most capable models typically require too much memory and processing power to run on a smartphone.

Apple can send complex requests to cloud-based models, but running more AI directly on the iPhone would reduce the delay associated with sending data to a remote server, lower cloud-computing costs and support the company’s privacy pitch. It would also allow certain features to work without an internet connection.