Apple reportedly eyeing enterprise AI servers built on M-series Ultra chips, with 2029 launch

Apple may be preparing a return to the server business for the first time in roughly two decades, according to a report from The Information. The company is said to be developing an enterprise-grade AI server that would pack multiple of its future M8 Ultra chips — the high-performance processors that currently anchor its Mac Studio desktops — with a projected market arrival in 2029.

The reported machine would come in two versions: one with two M8 Ultra chips and a second with four, per the report. The project, which reportedly kicked off about a year ago, drew backing from John Ternus, who championed the effort while leading Apple’s hardware engineering and has since taken over as CEO.

The move would mark a notable shift for a company that exited the server hardware market years ago. If it materializes, the product would put Apple — whose stock closed recently at $332.41, up 0.12% on the day, with a market capitalization of about $4.60 trillion — in more direct contact with the enterprise AI infrastructure buildout that has largely been dominated by NVIDIA, the dominant supplier of data center accelerators. NVIDIA shares recently traded at $223.67, down 0.73% on the session.

The report lands amid a surge in demand for Apple’s Mac mini and Mac Studio machines, which AI developers and enterprises have been buying in volume to run AI workloads. That appetite for Apple silicon in machine-learning settings appears to have encouraged the company to explore a dedicated server product built on the same Ultra chip architecture, which links two or more dies together for higher performance.

Any entry into the server rack would still face a long road: the reported 2029 timeline means Apple would be shipping into a data center market that will have evolved through several product cycles by then, and enterprise customers tend to demand deep software ecosystems and support infrastructure that Apple has not built out for servers in the modern AI era.

What to watch

• Whether Apple confirms or comments on the server project, or addresses enterprise AI hardware plans at upcoming events.
• Continued sales trends for Mac Studio and Mac mini among AI developers as an indicator of demand for Apple silicon in data-center-style workloads.
• Details on the M8 Ultra chip roadmap and its eventual specifications.
• Apple’s next quarterly earnings report for commentary on AI strategy and Mac segment performance.

Source: original release