“Rumors are starting to build that Apple Computer is closer than previously thought to releasing a computer with a new chip produced by IBM… The chip in question is the IBM Power PC 970, and while IBM wouldn’t come right out and say so, it has been clear for some time that the chip is being aimed squarely at making Apple a big customer of IBM chips. Among other things, the chips support an instruction set, for handling graphics, known as Altivec, but which Apple prefers to call the Velocity Engine. It’s also a 64-bit chip, meaning it can work with vastly larger amounts of memory, speeding up its ability to cut through huge volumes of data in a shorter time. When IBM first presented information on the chip at an engineering conference in October, it suggested the chip would be ready for volume production by mid-2003. Meanwhile, Apple announced May 8 that Jobs will give a big keynote speech at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on June 23. Naturally, expectations are focused on the potential that new Apple machines could figure prominently in his remarks. To date, Apple has said nothing about using the chip in future systems, but it would be crazy not to consider it,” reports Forbes.com here.