Apple CEO Tim Cook didn't reveal much about the company's AI plans during a second-quarter earnings call with investors on Thursday, but he did say a few things about how the tech giant plans to move forward with artificial intelligence. confirmed the information.
Notably, his comments suggest that Apple is building too many new data centers to run or train AI models, despite spending more than $100 billion on research and development over the past five years. This suggests that there are no plans to increase it. Instead, the company told investors it will continue to pursue a “hybrid” approach when it comes to AI, similar to other cloud services.
AI spans devices beyond the iPhone
We also learned that Apple envisions AI as a key opportunity across “the majority” of its device lineup, not just the iPhone. We've known this for a while—after all, Apple calls its M3 MacBook Air “the best consumer laptop for AI”—and the company said in its earnings call that across its products Shouted out how AI is being used.
“We see both AI (generative AI and AI) as a huge opportunity for us across our products, and we'll be talking more about this in the coming weeks. There's a lot of great ways for us out there. I think there is, and I think we're in a good position,” Cook said.
In addition to the MacBook Air, the Apple Watch also uses AI and machine learning in features such as irregular heart rhythm notifications and fall detection, Cook said. And when talking about enterprise, the CEO noted that large enterprises are buying Vision Pro and exploring use cases for it, but added that he doesn't intend to “lock it to just AI.”
“All I can say is that we see generative AI as a very important opportunity across our products. And we believe there are advantages there that set us apart.” said Mr. Cook.
AI unlikely to appear at this month's iPad event
But customers looking forward to AI-powered Siri will have to wait a little longer for the news, which was long expected to be announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. When asked Thursday about how AI will impact consumer demand for new devices like the iPhone, Cook said he doesn't see an impact “in the next quarter or so” when it comes to generative AI. “It has a huge impact,” he said. I'm optimistic about technology.”
Apple has no plans to make any major AI announcements before WWDC.
The discovery comes as a result of a correction to a CNBC News article that incorrectly interpreted Cook's remarks that he appeared to have “big plans to announce” from an “AI perspective” at both upcoming events, including next week's iPad event. It was done. And WWDC in June. However, as a subsequent correction indicates (after a rebuke by a supposedly frenzied Apple communications team), Cook paused before saying “…from an AI perspective…” which is not the case with his next It was the beginning of an idea and had nothing to do with Apple's plans for either event. .
This article has been updated with this fix, so people weren't expecting AI news to be announced at the iPad event scheduled for May 7th (you can read the inside story on the fix at 9to5Mac ).
I didn't expect to hear much about AI, at least not until WWDC, and this fix basically confirms that timing.
Apple is taking a hybrid approach to AI investments
But the biggest AI news was what Cook said about Apple's CapEx spending, which is money spent on fixed assets like servers, data centers and real estate.
It's not often the most interesting topic, but the company's response hinted at Apple's AI investment plans. As technology investor MG Siegler pointed out on his blog, Apple CFO Luca Maestri, responding to a question about the impact of generative AI on Apple's historic capital spending pace, said Apple is pursuing a hybrid model. He explained. We share them with our suppliers and partners…”
He added that Apple is “doing similar things on the data center side.” We have our own data center capacity and use third party capacity. ”
“This is a model that has worked well for us historically and we plan to continue along the same lines,” Maestri said.
Siegler interpreted this to mean that Apple doesn't have to spend on CapEx because it doesn't plan to build and train LLMs (Large-Scale Language Models) on its own servers anytime soon.
And if you squint a little, it could also be another sign that Apple might be considering third parties to power its own AI services. As Bloomberg reported in April, Apple is in talks with ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Google to power AI chatbots introduced in the iOS 18 update.
Apple has confirmed that its capital expenditures will not be affected by short-term AI plans, so perhaps Apple will sign some kind of agreement with partners for AI services as well, in addition to what it can process on its devices and in-house. It is thought that they are planning to tie it. It remains to be seen whether Apple will eventually shift the balance toward making greater use of its servers and data centers.