As large tech companies gear up to make a stronger push into machine learning and artificial intelligence, Apple has acquired a company to fill out its own capabilities in the area. Specifically, Apple has picked up Lattice Data, a company that applies an AI enabled inference engine to take unstructured, "dark" data and turn it into structured (and more usable) information. We've heard from a single source that Apple has paid a price of around $200 million. The deal was closed a couple of weeks ago, the source said, and about 20 engineers have joined the larger company. A source first alerted us to this, and we've received the standard Apple confirmation.