Apple acquires ‘dark data’ AI company Lattice Data for $200mn

Apple has acquired Lattice Data, a company that uses AI enabled reference engine to turn unstructured "dark data" into structured data, reports TechCrunch.

The deal reportedly cost the Cupertino giant somewhere around $200 million, closing a few weeks ago, with nearly 20 engineers from Lattice Data joining Apple. The company, as usual, gave away their customary statement- “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

Lattice Data- Turning unstructured data into structured data

Lattice Data uses machine learning techniques to turn “dark data,” or unstructured data such as text and images into structured data that can then be handled with traditional data analysis tools.

The startup was founded by Christopher Ré, Michael Cafarella, Raphael Hoffmann, and Feng Niu in 2015 based upon DeepDive, a system created at Stanford. The company has raised nearly $20 million in funding from GV, Madrona and InQTel.

The report says Lattice Data had been “talking to other tech companies about enhancing their AI assistants” before the Apple acquisition, suggesting that Apple plans to use Lattice Data to enhance its artificial intelligence efforts, likely related to Siri.