generation Foundation Models explained

Key Points:

• Apple unveiled its third generation of Apple Foundation Models (AFM) at WWDC26, featuring five models that include both on-device and cloud-based versions, with one model running on Google Cloud using Nvidia GPUs.
• The new lineup includes AFM 3 Core and AFM 3 Code Advanced for on-device use, and AFM 3 Cloud, ADM 3 Cloud (Image), and AFM 3 Cloud Pro for server-based applications, with AFM 3 Cloud Pro operating on external infrastructure while maintaining Apple’s privacy standards.
• AFM 3 Core Advanced is notable for its 20-billion-parameter sparse architecture enabling high-performance on-device AI, while AFM 3 Cloud Pro leverages a secure collaboration between Apple and Google, using advanced privacy measures and cryptographic verification on Google Cloud.
• Apple emphasized that the models were trained without using user data, relying instead on publicly available, licensed, open-source, and synthetic data, and allowing web publishers to opt out of training datasets.
• Extensive human evaluations showed that the third-gen models outperform their predecessors in instruction following, truthfulness, presentation, image understanding, and dictation quality across multiple languages and regions.