Cook Team: Apple Ready To Spend Big To Pursue Disadvantage In AI

JAKARTA Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that his company is ready to significantly increase spending to catch up in artificial intelligence (AI). This includes the possibility of building more data centers and acquiring a larger AI company a move that marks a shift from Apple's economical approach so far.

In a post-conferencing call after Apple's fiscal third-quarter financial report, Cook revealed that the company has acquired seven small companies this year and is open to larger purchases to accelerate the roadmap for the development of their AI technology.

We are very open to acquisitions that can accelerate our roadmap. We are not fixated on the size of the company. If a company can help accelerate our development, then we will be interested, "said Tim Cook, quoted by VOI from Reuters.

Apple is currently lagging behind competitors such as Microsoft and Google, which have spent tens to hundreds of billions of dollars each on AI development. Microsoft is expected to spend more than $100 billion this year, mostly building data centers, while Google is targeting spending up to 85 billion US dollars.

Unlike the two tech giants, Apple has been relying on third-party data center providers for most of their cloud computing needs. Despite having formed partnerships with OpenAI for certain features on the iPhone, Apple is still working on developing most of its AI technologies internally including improvements to Siri's virtual assistant, which is now being delayed until next year.

Apple also hinted at plans to increase investment in an area data center that previously only received several billion dollars per year from the company. According to Apple's CFO, kolan Parekh, although this increase in spending will not be exponential, will still grow substantially. "Most of this increase in spending is directly related to our investment in AI," said Parekh.

Apple is currently at an important crossroads in its business. A huge source of revenue from Google as the default search engine on the iPhone is threatened by an antitrust lawsuit in the US. Meanwhile, startups like Perplexity are looking for loopholes to replace Google with an AI-based browser capable of handling search functions more intelligently.

Although not confirmed independently, Bloomberg previously reported that Apple had discussed internally to acquire Perplexity as part of efforts to overhaul the Safari browser to be more integrated with AI-based search functions.

Currently, Apple is also relying on its own chip design to process AI demand, while maintaining privacy controls that comply with security standards on Apple devices.

Apple shares rose 1.7% in premarket trading on Friday morning August 1 after the announcement. If Apple actually expands spending and acquires large AI companies, then this move will be the most aggressive in Apple's acquisition history since the $3 billion purchase of Beats Electronics in 2014.