Apple to expand AI and machine learning office in Seattle, making room for 475 people

Apple is reportedly on the verge of moving into another floor at Seattle's Two Union Square, giving the company a presence on five floors of the skyscraper.

The upcoming expansion will bring Apple's footprint to over 70,000 square feet, room for between 350 and 475 people, GeekWire said, citing permits as well as visits to the location. Apple has so far refused to comment on the matter, and shows little trace of its presence at the building itself apart from keycard readers asking people to swipe their Apple ID badges.

Apple first launched its Seattle engineering office in 2014 after acquiring a local cloud computing startup, Union Bay Networks. The office has grown several times since then, and in 2016 Apple's Turi acquisition heralded the facility's transformation into a center for AI and machine learning.

The company has some 19 job openings at the moment, related not just to the fields above but also natural language processing and smarthome technology.

Seattle is an opportune city for Apple, since Amazon and Microsoft are headquartered there, and other tech firms like Facebook and Google have a major presence. That makes collaborations — and poaching — easier, though Apple workers can potentially be recruited too.

The company appears to be ramping up its focus on AI and machine learning, having been excoriated for weaknesses in Siri, particularly in relation to HomePod. Recently for example it hired Google's John Giannandrea to lead future efforts.

Apple's strict privacy policies have forced it to use creative means of making Siri "smart," but even then the assistant has been criticized as less capable than alternatives from Amazon and Google. On the HomePod, for example, the only natively supported music services are Apple Music and iTunes, and support for third-party apps is both limited and dependent on having an iOS device.

5 Comments

BGeek 1 comment · 6 Years

About 6 years ago

Any idea why Apple does not have a store in downtown Seattle? Seems like every other major city has a Apple store downtown.

brian green 635 comments · 21 Years

BGeek said:

Any idea why Apple does not have a store in downtown Seattle? Seems like every other major city has a Apple store downtown.

No idea. It's only the fastest growing city in the region. Maybe they think the small stores in Alderwood Mall, and Bellevue Square are "good enough".

Roger_Fingas 148 comments · 8 Years

brian green said:

BGeek said:

Any idea why Apple does not have a store in downtown Seattle? Seems like every other major city has a Apple store downtown.

No idea. It's only the fastest growing city in the region. Maybe they think the small stores in Alderwood Mall, and Bellevue Square are "good enough".

Often the company is waiting for space in an ideal location with favorable rates to open up.

djames4242 654 comments · 14 Years

brian green said:

BGeek said:

Any idea why Apple does not have a store in downtown Seattle? Seems like every other major city has a Apple store downtown.

No idea. It's only the fastest growing city in the region. Maybe they think the small stores in Alderwood Mall, and Bellevue Square are "good enough".

University Village is much closer to downtown than either of those, and Apple is building a brand new, much larger store adjacent to its current location.

Frankly, however, I'm not sure how convenient downtown stores are. I'm picking up a brand new iMac this weekend in Portland and choose Bridgeport (15 miles south) over the downtown location because I don't want to have to pay to park in a lot two blocks away carrying a $3000 computer back to my car. The store at University Village has a parking garage about 100 feet away from it with ample, free parking. The lots at Alderwood and Bellevue Square are only slightly less convenient, yet still free, unlike nearly every other downtown.

fastasleep 6450 comments · 14 Years

djames4242 said:

brian green said:

BGeek said:

Any idea why Apple does not have a store in downtown Seattle? Seems like every other major city has a Apple store downtown.

No idea. It's only the fastest growing city in the region. Maybe they think the small stores in Alderwood Mall, and Bellevue Square are "good enough".

University Village is much closer to downtown than either of those, and Apple is building a brand new, much larger store adjacent to its current location.

Frankly, however, I'm not sure how convenient downtown stores are. I'm picking up a brand new iMac this weekend in Portland and choose Bridgeport (15 miles south) over the downtown location because I don't want to have to pay to park in a lot two blocks away carrying a $3000 computer back to my car. The store at University Village has a parking garage about 100 feet away from it with ample, free parking. The lots at Alderwood and Bellevue Square are only slightly less convenient, yet still free, unlike nearly every other downtown.

Also Southcenter Mall’s Apple Store, while smaller, is much less busy and is really quick to get in and out of generally if they have what you need.