Apple is reportedly preparing an application called Harbor, which would run artificial intelligence models directly on its Mac computers, without going through the cloud. According to a description published on Tuesday, November 10 by Aaron Perris, a regular source of Apple leaks, the tool could combine several machines connected via Thunderbolt 5. It is said to already be in private testing at Claris, a subsidiary of the group.
The Mac Studio and Mac mini have found a new audience in recent months: users want to run AI models at home rather than using an online service. Until now, this required tinkering with third-party tools like LM Studio, Ollama, or EXO, sometimes using the Terminal.
Harbor would be an inference server, meaning software that runs a pre-trained model and responds to queries, similar to OpenAI’s servers for ChatGPT. According to the description, everything would happen on the Mac’s chip, without data leaving the machine. The application would use open-weight models, whose weights—the parameters learned during training—are published and downloadable by anyone.
Multiple Macs for a Single Model
Harbor can harness the power of two or more Macs via a Thunderbolt 5 interconnection, the latest version of this connectivity, which offers 80 Gb/s in both directions, and up to 120 Gb/s in one direction. This link allows the unified memory of the machines to be pooled, which the chip shares between the CPU and GPU and which determines the size of models a Mac can load. The cluster can thus run a model too large for a single computer, or handle more queries simultaneously.
According to the description, Harbor detects connected Macs and forms the cluster automatically, without manual configuration or command line. Apple has already integrated the technical foundation into macOS Tahoe 26.2, with support for RDMA over Thunderbolt 5, a technique that allows one Mac to directly read another’s memory with very low latency.
Availability Still Unclear
Apple has not officially announced anything. According to 9to5Mac, which relayed the presentation, Harbor is currently in a private preview under the Claris brand, which publishes FileMaker, a software that allows businesses to create their own applications. The outlet estimates a launch could happen in the coming weeks or months, without further details.
The public release date and access conditions remain unknown. The description also does not specify which chips will be required, how many Macs can be connected, or which models will be offered and under what licenses.
According to Apple’s support page, only the Mac Studio released since 2025, MacBook Pro with Pro or Max chips released since 2024, and the Mac mini with a Pro chip have Thunderbolt 5 ports.
