The Mac isn't selling as fast as Apple can make them because of artificial intelligence needs as some would have you believe, but AI is giving businesses plenty of reasons to buy more of them. You may have noticed that the lead times on both the Mac mini and the Mac Studio have been a bit much over the last year or so. In fact, right now, if you wanted to buy a fully maxed-out Mac Studio, there's a 10- to 12-week wait.

There's also an $18,299 price tag before taxes. Just saying. A major reason is that we're seeing unprecedented supply chain constraints as both storage and memory components become harder to reliably and inexpensively source.

But there is another part of the story. And it's a story worth delving into, because it is, unfortunately, going to affect all of us in one way or another. So let's talk about Mac mini, Mac Studio, and artificial intelligence.

Yes, people are using the Mac for AI. Suppliers are seeing an increased demand for the Mac mini and Mac Studio. And yes, AI is definitely a reason behind why that's happening.

For some, there's this idea that Mac, especially Apple's pint-sized powerhouses, is covertly becoming the backbone of artificial intelligence. Let me be clear here. There's an entire ocean between 'AI is driving Mac demand' and 'Mac is becoming foundational AI infrastructure.' Even Apple is aware of this.

In fact, Apple's entire pitch is that the Mac mini and Mac Studio are perfect for doing smaller tasks, something akin to an AI-based 'chore.' We've already known that this has been the case for several months. But when large AI outfits start buying up Apple's gear in bulk, it gets people talking. According to The Information, Open AI has purchased tens of thousands of Mac minis and Mac Studios.

And Anthropic leases its Mac minis through Amazon Web Services. But if these Macs aren't being used for infrastructure, even when purchased in bulk like this, what are they actually being used for? It's the little things, sometimes. Open AI isn't chaining a bunch of Mac minis together to make a supercomputer, and there are no obvious plans to do so.

That doesn't, however, mean that there's not an Apple-shaped spot in the pipeline. One of the best things about a Mac mini, and this goes doubly for a Mac Studio, is that it's a lot of energy-efficient computing power in a small footprint. This makes them ideal for hyper-specific use cases that require a lot of repetition.

One such use is reinforcement learning, a process in which AI needs to learn through trial and error.