Apple's PrivateCloudCompute and ComputeModule Devices

TapTechNews June 27 news, in last year's iOS16.4 test version SDK, 9to5Mac first discovered new clues about the ComputeModule device class. At that time, it was speculated that this might be a device similar to the Raspberry Pi development board. Now it seems that this device is actually the PrivateCloudCompute (PCC, private cloud computing) that Apple recently announced for processing AppleIntelligence data.

At that time, references to ComputeModule13,1 and ComputeModule13,3 appeared in the iOS16.4 test version file. Now there is also ComputeModule14,1, and this server is based on the M2Ultra chip and is likely the server that Apple uses for its artificial intelligence functions.

According to TapTechNews' understanding, AppleIntelligence can run both on the device and use an online language model. However, in order to protect the privacy of users, Apple created PCC, which uses self-developed chips to process end-to-end encrypted requests, so even Apple cannot access these data. After processing is completed, all data will be permanently erased.

The following is Apple's description of PCC:

PrivateCloudCompute unprecedentedly extends the industry-leading device security and privacy standards to the cloud, ensuring that personal user data sent to PCC can only be accessed by the user himself, not even Apple. PCC is built with custom AppleSilicon and an enhanced privacy protection operating system, and is the most advanced security architecture in the field of large-scale artificial intelligence computing that we have ever deployed in the cloud.

What about the first batch of ComputeModule devices discovered last year? It is reported that they are still actively used by Apple, but they are equipped with the basic M1 chip. It is not yet clear what purpose Apple will use these modules for, but it can be speculated that they can use M1 devices to run other non-artificial intelligence tasks.