Apple Inc. has acquired machine-learning startup Inductiv Inc., taking the company’s AI-related acquisitions to more than a dozen in the past few years.
According to reports, the engineering team from Ontario-based Inductiv joined Apple in recent weeks to work on Siri, machine learning and data science.
Apple confirmed the deal, saying it “buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
Inductiv developed technology that uses artificial intelligence to automate the task of identifying and correcting errors in data. Having clean data is important for machine learning, a popular and powerful type of AI that helps software improve with less human intervention.
The work falls under the category of data science, a key element of Apple’s broader machine-learning strategy. In 2018, the company brought on several engineers from Silicon Valley Data Science, a consulting firm that focuses on this field.
John Giannandrea, the Apple executive in charge of Siri and machine learning, has been upgrading the underlying technology that goes into the Siri digital assistant and other AI-powered products from the company.
Inductiv was co-founded by machine-learning professors from Stanford University, the University of Waterloo, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
