Amaya Tomanová Apple this week introduced new generations in a rather unusual way Macu mini a Macat the Studio at the end of August, at a time when all attention traditionally begins to shift to the September iPhones. According to behind-the-scenes informationmacHowever, the Californian giant had a very good reason for bringing the premiere forward. About its powerful desktop MacThere is much more interest among companies in artificial intelligence than Apple expected
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Jan Vajdák New Macwhile Apple It usually occurs during October or November. According to The Information This year's change is mainly due to the growing demand from companies for computers capable of running demanding AI models locally. Mac mini and especially Mac Studio They find themselves in a somewhat different role than we were used to in the past.
Besides, alone Apple when introducing a new Macu Studio has been quite vocal about the possibility of connecting several of these computers together and creating a much more powerful system capable of working with very large AI models. This is no longer a feature intended for the average user, who Macu edit photos, edit video or work in office applications. Apple is quite openly trying to reach out to developers and companies here.
From the inconspicuous Macu mini is a corporate hit
He indicated that something was changing. Apple already in June during the Business at the Park event, which was attended by representatives of Ford, Disney and Anthropic. Now Mac mini should have been, according to available informationmacis one of the main stars of the entire event.
It makes quite a bit of sense. The current Mac mini offers very high performance for its size, thanks to Apple Silicon It works with a single memory available to both the CPU and GPU. It is the combination of performance, relatively compact dimensions, and the ability to equip computers with a large amount of memory that has made them an interesting alternative for some AI-related tasks.
Pro Apple However, there is one rather curious aspect to the whole story. According to The Information, the company was not prepared for such interest from the corporate sector. It did not have a dedicated team of engineers focused on corporate customers or employees focused on developer relations in this area, and it also lacked a comprehensive strategy for the enterprise use of AI.
Even companies that Apple approached with a request for access to the Private infrastructure Cloud Compute, they should have been rejected. Apple instead relies on partners such as WebAI and Mount Thor to provide the tools and environments to run AI solutions on hardware. Appyou.
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Success also brought an unpleasant problem
The huge demand also comes at a rather inopportune time. The global market is struggling with a memory shortage and some configurations Macu mini a MacAt Studio, they were therefore practically unavailable for months. For companies that do not need one computer, but dozens or hundreds of them, a similar situation is of course an even bigger problem.
Some customers have reportedly started looking for alternatives, including the Nvidia DGX Spark. It is a compact computer focused on AI, which, in terms of its dimensions and basic idea, somewhat resembles Mac mini. Apple Paradoxically, it may be losing customers in a segment in which it did not expect such significant success until relatively recently.
The whole situation also nicely shows how quickly AI is changing the computer market. Mac mini For many years, it was primarily an accessible gateway to the world macOS, while Mac Studio was created as a compact workstation for demanding professionals. Now both machines are also becoming interesting hardware for running artificial intelligence. And while other companies are trying to convince customers that their AI computers need, Apple It seems to solve the exact opposite problem – companies want them faster than they can deliver them.
David Trlica 
Pavel Vařenka 
Jiří Filip 
