Apple’s Making Its Own GPU to Control Its Own Destiny

For years, a company called Imagination Technologies gave Apple the tech behind your iPhone’s Retina-ready graphics and eye-popping image processing. That relationship ended today. From here on out, according to an Imagination Technologies release, Apple will design its own underlying technology for GPUs. The reason is simple: It’s officially too important to entrust to someone else.

Losing such a major customer has cratered Imagination Technologies stock; about half the company’s annual revenue came from Apple. But that doesn’t mean Apple’s sudden yen for graphics independence should come as a surprise. In fact, it was inevitable. Graphics are the future. Not only that, but they’re increasingly important in the present: Graphics processors underpin virtually all of the features and experiences that today’s tech companies scramble to lead in.