Apple’s Imagination Technologies deal is all about ray tracing and AR

Apple sent Imagination Technologies’ stock into a tailspin when it decided in 2017 to end its licensing contract with the storied British graphics chip maker, a process that was expected to cut Imagination intellectual property out of Apple products by 2019. As A-series CPUs and GPUs have grown to rival Intel’s mobile chips in performance, Apple apparently determined that it didn’t need Imagination innovations to keep moving forward. As a direct result of Apple’s decision, Imagination lost some of its GPU engineers, disposed of its MIPS CPU division, and ultimately sold its remaining business to a Chinese private equity company at a loss compared with its prior value.

But as 2020 kicks off, Imagination unexpectedly announced today that Apple has signed a new multi-year licensing agreement — a deal that is deliberately being left ambiguous in the company’s press release, but will likely wind up being extremely important to upcoming Apple devices. Under the new agreement, Apple will gain “wider range” access to Imagination’s IP going forward, and since the British company’s most significant new IP focuses on a realistic graphics technology called ray tracing, it’s highly likely that Apple plans to add ray-tracing capabilities to its chips in the foreseeable future.