For the majority of the last 18 months, Wall Street analysts have questioned Apple CEO Tim Cook about the company's AI initiatives, despite complaints that the manufacturer of iPhones had no compelling AI narrative to offer.

Following the company's quarterly results, Cook stated that Apple will be able to discuss its AI intentions in more depth very soon.

"We continue to feel very bullish about our opportunity in generative AI and we're making significant investments," Cook says.

During the same time span, Apple's Big Tech competitors have invested as much, if not more, in R&D, but they have also been aggressively investing in the construction of data centres that will house AI services.
In the last quarter, Microsoft spent $14 billion on capital expenditures (capex), with Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, following closely at $12 billion. Last week, Meta Platforms advised investors to anticipate capital expenditures of up to $40 billion this year.

With its shares down 10 percent due to investor concerns that the business was lagging behind in the AI race, Apple—which generates the majority of its revenue from the sale of consumer electronics—has paid a premium for that position for the most of this year. As the three corporations compete to control the developing AI market, their shares of Meta, Google, and Microsoft—all of which generate revenue from software and advertising services—have all surged to all-time highs. However, investors have also shied away from the rapidly increasing cost of data centres and other infrastructure.

Apple will not follow suit. Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri stated that although Apple is anticipated to introduce new AI capabilities at its annual software conference next month and revamp its product lines with chips that are suitable for artificial intelligence, investors shouldn't anticipate a significant shift in the way the company manages capital expenditures.

“We do something similar on the data centre side. We have our own data center capacity, and then we use capacity from third parties. It's a model that has worked well for us historically, and we plan to continue along the same lines going forward,” says Maestri.