Apple quietly acquired WaveOne, a California-based startup that develops AI algorithms for video compression.

While Apple did not announce the acquisition, Bob Stankosh, former WaveOne sales and business development executive, posted on LinkedIn about the startup’s sale to the iPhone maker.

“After nearly two years at WaveOne, last week we closed the sale of the company to Apple,” Stankosh said.

“We started our journey at WaveOne, realising that machine learning/deep learning video technology could change the world. Apple saw the potential and took this opportunity to add it to their technology portfolio,” he added.

He thanked co-founders Lubomir Bourdev, Oren Rippel, and Craig Lytle for their help in bringing the idea to market and advancing the concept into commercial applications.

TechCrunch was the first to report on Apple’s acquisition for an undisclosed amount.

Using the startup’s artificial intelligence technology can “understand” video frames, allowing it to prioritise human faces.

An artificial intelligence-powered video codec could help Apple deliver more efficient streaming on services like its Apple TV+.

WaveOne utilises the latest machine learning and deep learning advances to bring unique and disruptive solutions and services to digital media, social and enterprise platforms.

The startup supports cloud-based AI-native video solutions that leverage machine learning and deep neural network (DNN) technology.