Private Cloud Compute is Apple’s cloud intelligence system for private AI processing, used to keep Apple Intelligence requests secure while handling processing in the cloud. PCC has been limited to Apple silicon servers in Apple data centers, but Apple is now relying on Google servers to handle some Apple Intelligence processing.
Apple partnered with Google to use the technologies behind Google’s Gemini AI models for its own Apple Foundation Models. While some processing is done on-device, agentic tool use and complex reasoning require cloud processing. Apple says it worked with Google and NVIDIA to extend its PCC infrastructure to Google Cloud systems that run NVIDIA GPUs without compromising privacy and security protections.
Our core PCC requirements remain exactly the same: stateless computation, enforceable guarantees, no privileged runtime access, non-targetability, and verifiable transparency. What’s new with PCC on Google Cloud is the implementation: NVIDIA Confidential Computing with NVIDIA GPUs, Intel CPUs with TDX, and Google’s Titan chip.
All server components and software are part of a trusted computing base subject to verifiable transparency and no-privileged-access guarantees, plus Apple has a cryptographically verifiable ledger of all Google Cloud hardware that is part of the PCC fleet to mitigate the risk of supply chain attacks. PCC on Google Cloud also uses many of the same architectural security patterns as PCC on Apple silicon.
Apple says the efforts it has made to bring PCC to Google Cloud will mean user data continues to be protected by PCC’s security and privacy properties even outside of Apple hardware and data centers. Apple maintains control over PCC software and Apple devices will only trust PCC software cryptographically approved by Apple.
PCC on Google Cloud is not fully implemented, and Apple plans to gradually add the full set of protections throughout the beta testing process.
PCC on Google Cloud binaries will be available for public inspection. Apple plans to provide public research tooling and access to live PCC nodes in research mode through its Apple Security Bounty Program.
This article, “Apple’s Private AI Will Run on Google’s Servers” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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