Why Apple Must Acquire Anthropic Now Before It's Too Late

Apple is at a critical juncture as growth slows and its stock price faces pressure. To secure its place as a leader in the era of artificial intelligence, Apple must take decisive action now. The company's clearest path forward is to acquire Anthropic, an AI research company, before the price becomes prohibitively steep.

Anthropic has developed state-of-the-art AI models like Claude that can engage in openended conversation, provide nuanced analysis, help with complex programming tasks, and even assist in creative work. Crucially, Anthropic's AI is architected for efficient execution on resource-constrained devices - an ideal fit for Apple's strategic advantages in custom silicon.

The Lesson of the Apple Car

Apple's recent struggles to launch an autonomous vehicle illustrate the perils of assuming all innovation can happen in-house. Despite years of development and billions invested, Apple's car project has faced repeated setbacks and delays. The company's go-it-alone approach has left it struggling to catch up with rivals who have moved faster by partnering with industry leaders.

In AI, Apple risks repeating this mistake on an even grander scale. The company's in-house AI efforts have been modest compared to the industry's breakneck pace. As transformative language models and generalist AI systems emerge from labs at Google, OpenAI, and DeepMind, Apple is at risk of being left behind.

Rather than hoping it can catch up solo, Apple needs to accelerate its AI roadmap through a major acquisition. With advanced language AI from Anthropic, Apple could leap to the cutting edge - and harness its silicon prowess to achieve something truly distinctive.

 Apple's Silicon Edge

Apple's A-series chips for iOS devices and M-series processors for Macs feature powerful Neural Engine cores purposely built for AI workloads. The A14's 16-core Neural Engine blazes through 11 trillion operations per second, while the M1 matches that 11 TOPS figure. 

By acquiring Anthropic, Apple could fully exploit its silicon edge to run premier AI models on-device. The next Siri could engage in freeform dialog and serve as an omniscient digital assistant. Macs could sport AI coding tools and intelligent writing aids. And with over 1.65 billion Apple devices in use, Anthropic's AI could power a distributed edge computing mesh of unprecedented scale and efficiency.

Executing AI on-device confers key advantages. Inference is fast and private, computations work offline, and purpose-built silicon delivers unmatched efficiency. While cloud AI platforms

Created with Claude 3 Opus  with the following prompt and minor edits:  Write a blog post about why apple should buy anthropic as soon as possible before they become too big to buy. mention how apple can leverage the neural engines in their devices to create distributed o=line ai especially for small and medium sized models while leaving big tasks like drug development to giant models like opus. give examples to illustrate each concept. also add a paragraph about how the neural engines in all the A Series and M Series of chips in apples products could be used to run distributed and o=line computing for ai tasks leading to a vastly more scalable AI infrastructure than the centralised o=erings by OpenAI and Microsoft. explain how phone hardware is coming to the limits of human experience for example no matter how much you increase pixel density; the human eye is incapable of experiencing it above 340ppi in normal use. make the point about falling sales and share price of apple and that the future lies in using ai to solve day to day problems and bringing knowledge and understanding to people as soon as they need it. use more factual and less flowery language about anthropic.

like OpenAI ship data to remote servers, Apple could retrospectively embed AI into every device for a more scalable, seamless experience.

 AI as the Next Frontier

Mobile hardware innovation is reaching a plateau as the utility of better specs diminishes. Advances like ultra-high pixel density and increasing megapixels now deliver little perceptible benefit. To wow users, Apple needs AI that can understand and interact with our world in richer ways, there are fewer products placed to do this than Apples iPhone and Mac Products.

Acquiring Anthropic's cutting-edge models is essential for Apple to make this AI-driven leap. But the company needs to act fast as the AI arms race heats up and valuations skyrocket. With over $200B in cash reserves, Apple has the means to buy Anthropic before the cost becomes exorbitant.

However, Apple's vast war chest does it no good if not deployed for the right strategic priorities. Years of R&D on Project Titan's car have yet to bear fruit. Apple can't afford another missed opportunity as AI remakes entire industries.

Apple needs to internalize the lesson of the Apple Car: going it alone risks getting lapped by competitors. Acquiring Anthropic is Apple's surest path to securing an AI edge while the top start-ups are still within financial reach.

Combining Anthropic's powerful language AI with Apple silicon could yield game-changing user experiences and a novel distribute edge AI architecture. Cloud players will struggle to match the speed and ubiquity of on-device AI.

But Apple must move with uncharacteristic urgency. As tech giants pour billions into a noholds-barred AI race, the price for leaders like Anthropic is set to soar. If Apple waits even a few months, it could face an insurmountable gulf.

 The risks of being left behind in AI are simply too high. To protect its pre-eminence as computing grows intelligent, Apple needs to place a bold bet on bringing Anthropic inhouse. With smart integration, it can leverage Anthropic's powerful models across its billiondevice installed base to create a new gold standard in distributed edge AI.

 The age of AI is here, and Apple's place in it will hinge on decisions made today. Buying Anthropic isn't optional, but an essential strategic imperative for Apple's future. The sands of time are flowing - Apple must act now while it is possible to buy this capability at a reasonable price, or risk irrelevance and a turn in fortunes for the worse.

– SESINAM DAGADU, SnooCODE Founder & CEO