In what perhaps is the first "official" confirmation that IBM's PowerPC 970's will be used by Apple, BusinessWeek claims that IBM "has confirmed that it's developing a new set of chips for the Mac":
While Motorola has struggled in chips, IBM has soared. Under CEO Sam Palmisano, Big Blue has poured money into chip research and upgraded its factories. IBM says the new Apple chip will be of the 64-bit variety, which means it can process twice as much information per cycle as existing 32-bit chips.
No specific executives are quoted, however... so it's unclear from where the information originated.
The PowerPC 970 has been widely rumored and expected to be used in Apple's upcoming Macs, though neither IBM nor Apple had not made any official announcements about their use.
Update: The article has been edited with the following correction/retraction:
"IBM did not confirm it was building a chip specifically for Apple, but it does say its new PowerPC chip will work on Apple platforms"
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