Apple quietly buys Lattice Data as arms race against other tech giants continues

Apple (AAPL) is looking to stay ahead of the artificial intelligence development curve with the purchase of Lattice Data, a company that uses AI technology to turn so-called "dark" data into more usable data sets The deal closed a couple of weeks ago at $200 million, according to a report from TechCrunch. On Sunday, Apple issued a generic statement on the deal that said it "buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans." Founded in 2015, Lattice Data claims that its work is "human-caliber quality at machine-caliber scale." As part of the deal, about 20 engineers from Lattice Data are now working at Apple. This is a common practice in the tech sphere.