Apple buys big data and machine learning firm TupleJump

Tech giant continues buying spree

Apple has bought a big data and machine learning startup called TupleJump.

The deal was first report on TechCrunch, and Apple confirmed it to the site with the usual statement that it occasionally buys smaller companies, but does not discuss the details of such deals.

Additionally, two of the co-founders have updated their LinkedIn pages to show that they started working at Apple in May. One, Satyaprakash Buddhavarapu, is now listed as an engineering manager, while the other, Rohit Rai, is listed as a software engineer.

The TupleJump website does not appear to exist any more, but a search through the Wayback machine shows that the company claimed to be one of the first to recognise and react to the need for big data tools to help firms make use of information.

"A few years ago people realised that the volume of data that businesses generate was becoming unwieldy. A new set of technologies to handle these huge amounts of data cropped up," the site said.

"We were one of the early adopters of these big data technologies. Having helped Fortune 500 companies adopt these technologies we quickly realised how complicated they were and how much simpler they could get."

The acquisition underlines Apple's desire to increase its capabilities in areas like big data and machine learning to keep pace with Microsoft, Facebook and Google.

The deal follows Apple's acquisition of AI startup Turi in August for $200m in a purchase designed to boost its AI capabilities.

All large tech vendors are engaged in something of an arms race with these technologies, and Google in particular has spent huge sums to bolster its efforts in several areas.

Just this week Google bought a firm called API.AI for its chatbot technologies, following a $625m deal for Apigee earlier this month.