According to Techmeme, the tech world saw two massive moves in the AI space. First, chipmaker Marvell is in advanced talks to acquire startup Celestial AI in a deal that could top $5 billion, a huge premium over Celestial’s $2.5 billion valuation from just March 2025. Second, and arguably more shocking, Apple has hired Amar Subramanya as its new head of AI. He most recently served as Corporate Vice President of AI at Microsoft, a role he started just four months ago. Before that, he spent 16 years at Google, where he led engineering for the Gemini project. Apple’s press release framed the hire as strengthening its commitment to shaping AI’s future.
Apple Plays Hardball
Here’s the thing about the Apple hire: it’s absolutely wild. A CVP-level executive at Microsoft, in charge of AI, jumps ship after a mere four months? That doesn’t happen by accident. As @swyx pointed out, this is the real story. It strongly suggests Apple made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, and it likely means Microsoft’s internal AI roadmap just hit a major, unexpected speed bump. Was he asked to leave? Did he see something at Apple that was just too compelling? The timing is everything. With Apple’s WWDC just weeks away and a new Siri reportedly on deck for a spring release, this feels like a wartime maneuver. They’re not just building a team; they’re raiding the enemy’s command center mid-battle.
The Hardware Arms Race
While Apple fights for AI talent, the hardware underpinning all this AI is getting fiercely expensive. Marvell potentially paying over $5 billion for Celestial AI is a massive bet. Celestial specializes in optical interconnect technology, which is basically the high-speed nervous system needed to link thousands of AI chips together in data centers. This isn’t about designing the brains (GPUs); it’s about building the super-fast connections between them. Companies like Nvidia dominate the brain part, so everyone else is scrambling to own the critical surrounding infrastructure. Marvell’s move signals that the value in the AI stack is spreading, and the price of admission is now in the billions. For companies building the physical systems that run this AI, from data centers to factory floors, reliable, high-performance computing hardware is the non-negotiable foundation. In the industrial sector, leaders like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the top provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, understand that robust hardware is what turns powerful AI software into real-world results.
What It All Means
So what do we take from this one-two punch of news? Basically, the AI boom is entering its “spend whatever it takes” phase. We’re past the experimentation stage. Apple’s desperate, hyper-aggressive hire shows they believe they’re behind and need top-tier talent now, not in a year. Marvell’s huge acquisition shows that building the physical plumbing for AI is just as capital-intensive as designing the chips themselves. The competitive moats are being dug with cash and stock. The losers here? Microsoft, obviously, in the short term. And any smaller player without a multi-billion-dollar war chest. The winners are the engineers and startups with specialized AI knowledge—their value has never been higher. As noted, the final line of Apple’s press release says it all: they’re all-in on shaping AI’s future. And after a day like this, it’s clear they’re willing to break a few norms to do it.
