Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL, ETR:APC) chief executive Tim Cook has indicated the company is prepared to step up investment in artificial intelligence, including spending more on data centres and remaining open to acquiring larger businesses in the sector.
This marks a shift for Apple, which has typically preferred small, targeted acquisitions and has relied on third-party data centre providers for much of its cloud infrastructure.
Rivals such as Microsoft and Google have already spent heavily to gain ground in artificial intelligence, with both companies allocating tens of billions of dollars to expand their computing capacity.
Apple’s approach to developing its AI, including improvements to its Siri voice assistant, has mostly been in-house, but some product launches have faced delays.
Cook told analysts that the company had acquired seven small businesses so far this year and would consider bigger deals if they helped accelerate Apple’s AI plans.
Chief financial officer Kevan Parekh said investment would rise “substantially”, but not at an exponential rate.