Apple has big AI ambitions, at a lower cost than its rivals

“We continue to feel very bullish about our opportunity in generative AI and we’re making significant investments,” Tim Cook told Reuters.

For most of the past year and a half, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has fielded questions from Wall Street analysts about his plans for artificial intelligence amid grumbling that the iPhone maker has no AI story to tell.

After the company reported quarterly earnings on Thursday, Cook insisted that Apple will have concrete details about its plans for AI to talk about very soon.

"We continue to feel very bullish about our opportunity in generative AI and we're making significant investments," Cook told Reuters in an interview, noting the company has spent $100 billion over the past five years on research and development.

Apple's Big Tech rivals have spent comparable or even greater amounts on R&D over the same period, but they have also been spending heavily to build data centres to host AI services.

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Microsoft shelled out $14 billion in the most recent quarter on capex, with Alphabet's Google not far behind, at $12 billion. Meta Platforms told investors last week to expect as much as $40 billion in capital expenditures this year.

Apple thinks different. Its capital expenditure for all of 2023 was just over $10 billion.