Apple Introduces Third-Generation Foundation Models

Apple Foundation Models (AFM) 3rd generation, the core architecture of Apple Intelligence, consists of 5 models built in collaboration with Google. These models are designed to deliver a broad range of user experiences, from on-device environments to server environments leveraging Private Cloud Compute.

The on-device models include two core models.

• AFM 3 Core: A dense model with 3 billion parameters that raises quality to a new level.
• AFM 3 Core Advanced: The most powerful on-device model with 20 billion parameters, adopting a sparse architecture with Instruction-Following Pruning (IFP) technology. This approach stores the full weights on NAND and loads only the necessary expert weights into DRAM, dramatically reducing memory footprint.

The server-based models are divided into three types.

• AFM 3 Cloud: A general-purpose model optimized for speed and efficiency.
• ADM 3 Cloud (Image): Supports image generation and editing capabilities.
• AFM 3 Cloud Pro: A high-performance model for complex reasoning and agentic tool use, leveraging NVIDIA GPUs on Google Cloud to ensure scalability.

All server models operate through Private Cloud Compute, guaranteeing strong privacy protection so that user data is never leaked to or stored by outside parties, including Apple.