Source: The Verge
Apple's decade-long investment in autonomous vehicles, despite cancellation, produced tangible infrastructure—custom silicon designed for processing visual data and real-time inference at scale—that now powers its AI ambitions across devices. The failed car program functioned as an R&D accelerator, forcing Apple to solve hard problems in neural processing that directly transferred to iPhone and Mac chips. Dead-end moonshot projects often generate their highest return through lateral spillover rather than their original goal.