Apple and Meta joined forces to make an AI model called Muse Spark Open run on clustered Mac Studio systems. That's the news. Two companies worth a combined two trillion dollars figured out how to connect multiple computers together.
Groundbreaking stuff.
The technical achievement here involves taking machines that already exist and pointing them at software that already exists. Revolutionary work. Someone at Apple looked at a Mac Studio, then looked at another Mac Studio, and thought: what if we used both?
Meta built Muse. Apple sells expensive computers that sit on desks. Neither company could crack this problem alone. One had the AI model. The other had the desks. Together they formed like Voltron, except instead of defending the universe they made software run on hardware, which is traditionally what software does.
The phrase "easier to run locally" does heavy lifting here. Easier than what? Easier than not running it at all? Easier than training a carrier pigeon to deliver prompts? The bar sits underground.
Clustered Mac Studios cost roughly the same as a German sedan. Retail traders who spent their savings on NVDA calls because they read that AI needs chips will now watch two companies optimize AI for systems that don't use those chips. They'll refreshed their brokerage apps wondering why the play didn't work. The play didn't work because they confused a Reddit post for DD.
Apple gets to say they're doing AI stuff. Meta gets to say their model runs on premium hardware. Both companies will issue press releases using the word "collaboration" six times. Engineers at both firms will attend meetings about synergy. None of this will matter by Thursday.
The real innovation here is convincing journalists that connecting computers qualifies as news.
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