Apple, once the world’s most valuable company—as recently as at the beginning of this year—finds itself in the third spot after NVIDIA overtook its second place. This happened after Apple lost its first position with Microsoft in January.
Just last weekend, we posted how NVIDIA might overtake Apple soon, but we were surprised that it happened in less than a week, given that NVIDIA’s value then was around $2.6 Trillion and now it’s $3.01 Trillion. Talk about a leap.
Apple finds itself playing catch-up in the race to develop AI. While rivals like Google and Microsoft have been busy integrating generative AI into their products, Apple has struggled due to internal roadblocks and, perhaps, a focus of perfection over speed, as reported by WSJ.
Back in 2011, Apple was a trailblazer with the launch of Siri, the first mainstream AI assistant. However, Siri’s progress stalled, and tensions arose between existing Apple teams and the new AI group brought in to improve its new virtual assistant. The group, staffed with former Google engineers, clashed with Apple’s culture of strict deadlines and limited access to resources.
A turning point came in late 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT. This AI tool impressed Apple’s software chief, Craig Federighi, who became a fan of generative AI.
Since then, Apple has shifted gears, adding resources to in-house generative AI development and exploring partnerships with OpenAI, which is set to be unveiled next week at WWDC ’24. But apparently, it was too late to start focusing on AI.
This late awakening has led to this moment – where companies like Microsoft, which has invested massively in OpenAI, and NVIDIA, which leads in AI chips, have overtaken Apple in the span of six months.
Just for the context, NVIDIA’s value rose by 10x since October 2022, when it was valued at $300b. At the end of 2023, its value was just over the $1 trillion mark.
Next week, at its annual developer conference, Apple is expected to unveil AI-powered upgrades to its software products, including Siri. Hopefully, this will help Apple regain some of the market share and position lost to NVIDIA..
While Apple may not catch up overnight, experts believe the company’s focus on user privacy positions it well for the future of AI. Whether Siri can reclaim its lost ground and propel Apple back to the top spot in the AI race remains to be seen.