San Francisco, Aug 6 (IANS): Taking another foray into the field of artificial intelligence (AI) AND machine learning and to make its digital assistant Siri better, Apple has acquired Seattle-based machine learning startup Turi for nearly $200 million.

According to a GeekWire report, the move is set to increase Apple's presence in the Seattle region where the tech giant has been building an engineering outpost for the past two years.

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans," said Apple in a statement given to GeekWire.

Turi offers tools that are meant to let developers easily scale machine learning applications.

The startup is expected to remain in the Seattle region and continue to grow as Apple builds out further expertise in data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning, the report added.

The Cupertino-based company has recently bought some machine learning and AI startups like VocalIQ and Perceptio and facial recognition startup Emotient, among others.

Apple has recently been making a push into artificial intelligence through Siri personal assistant and related technologies.