Tim Cook dinner arrives for the yearly Allen and Co. Solar Valley Media and Era Convention on the Solar Valley Hotel in Solar Valley, Idaho, on July 8, 2025.
David Grogan | CNBC
Apple’s AI technique and funding used to be at the thoughts of analysts on an profits name nearest the corporate reported third-quarter profits that confirmed general earnings grew by means of 10% age over age.
Presen Apple used to be by no means taking to announce main acquisitions or tasks on an profits name, CEO Tim Cook dinner’s remarks on Thursday verify that the corporate goes to speculate extra closely within the generation.
Cook dinner stated Apple goes to “significantly” develop the corporate’s investments in AI. He added that Apple used to be at all times taking a look to shop for corporations of any measurement that would support it manufacture its AI choices.
“We’re very open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap,” Cook dinner stated. “We are are not stuck on a certain size company, although the ones that we have acquired thus far this year are small in nature.”
Cook dinner stated that Apple had received “around” seven corporations to this point this age, even if now not they all have been curious about AI. Presen Cook dinner has stated within the future that Apple is at all times comparing attainable acquisitions of all sizes, its greatest acquire of all life used to be Beats Electronics in 2014 for $3 billion.
He made the remarks Thursday as Apple has confronted rising force from Wall Boulevard to catch as much as its Silicon Valley friends, all of whom have devoted tens of billions of greenbacks towards the infrastructure essential to energy AI.
Apple hasn’t ever been the most important spender on capital expenditures amongst obese tech corporations. It simplest reported $3.46 billion in capital expenditures within the June quarter, up from $2.15 billion within the age in the past duration. Its bills this future quarter are the best they have got been for the reason that quarter finishing December 2022. If Apple spent up to it did this quarter for a complete age, that will be about $14 billion yearly.
That barely compares to Google projecting $85 billion in capital expenditures for its fiscal 2025 extreme presen, Meta’s estimate of up to $72 billion in annual capital expenditure spending, and Microsoft’s $30 billion capital expenditures information for the stream quarter.
Spending extra
“We are significantly growing our investment. We did during the June quarter. We will again in the September quarter,” Cook dinner stated.
He added that Apple used to be rearranging team of workers internally to focal point extra on AI.
“We are also reallocating a fair number of people to focus on on AI features within the company,” Cook dinner stated. “We have a great team, and we’re putting all of our energy behind it.”
To be sunlit, Google and Microsoft run cloud companies that hire out AI {hardware}, which Apple doesn’t. And Apple finance Kevan Parekh stated the corporate has a “hybrid” fashion to capital investments, during which it features get entry to to techniques it wishes via companions and data them as working bills.
Apple additionally stated that a few of its capex pays for servers the use of its personal chips, which it yells Personal Cloud Compute — now not service provider chips from corporations similar to Nvidia.
“I would say a significant portion of the driver of growth that you’re seeing now is really driven by some of our AI related investments,” Parekh stated.
“It’s difficult to see a world where iPhone’s not living in it,” Cook dinner stated, “That doesn’t mean that we are not thinking about other things as well, but I think that that the devices are likely to be complementary devices, not substitution.”
Cook dinner additionally made it sunlit to traders and analysts at the name that Apple does have an AI technique that it’s executing on.
“Our focus, from an AI point of view, is on putting AI features across the platform that are deeply personal, private and seamlessly integrated,” Cook dinner stated.
When requested if he concept that if massive language fashions — the core AI generation made by means of corporations similar to Anthropic and OpenAI — may well be commoditized, Cook dinner declined to reply to and stated he used to be preserving some portions of the corporate’s technique unrevealed for now.
“The way that we look at AI is that it’s one of the most profound technologies of our lifetime” Cook dinner stated. “It will affect all devices in a significant way.”
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