Although not on-device only , they were till recently investing on this. Yes cloud resources were used but their development was focusing on on device process.
Apple "invested" which means it can be on any company or research dealing with AI.
I have difficult to believe that anything Google, Meta, MS, Samsung, Nvidia (or many others) propose will be in good faith the same as Apple. Also Tim said that regulation needs to get in place, not that Apple will dictate it. A regulatory body of several companies.