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India Today
01-08-2025
- Business
- India Today
Apple to boost AI spending, Tim Cook says difficult to see a world where iPhone is not living in it
There is no doubt that Apple is officially late to the AI party. However, the company still has high hopes for its devices. This is not just a trend we observed, but CEO Tim Cook has recently told investors that Apple is throwing its full weight behind artificial intelligence as it seeks to catch up with rivals in the race to develop nextgeneration AI technologies. Speaking on the company's thirdquarter earnings call, he described AI as transformative and confirmed that Apple was reallocating resources and staff to strengthen its see AI as one of the most profound technologies of our lifetime. We are embedding it across our devices and platforms and across the company. We are also significantly growing our investments,' Cook said. 'Apple has always been about taking the most advanced technologies and making them easy to use and accessible for everyone, and that's at the heart of our AI strategy,' he explained that Apple has been moving more people onto AI projects. 'We have a great, great team and we're putting all of our energy behind it,' he said. The company said its growing AI ambitions are also visible in its capital expenditure. Spending is trending higher yeartodate, although Apple still leans on thirdparty partners for some infrastructure, limiting the overall rise in its CapEx an interview with CNBC ahead of the earnings release, Apple disclosed that mergers and acquisitions form part of this accelerated push. Cook said the company had already completed seven acquisitions in 2025, describing them as modest in size but significant strategically. 'None was huge,' he said, adding during the call that Apple was 'making acquisitions at the rate of one every several weeks.'The company has faced criticism for being slow to respond to the current AI wave. Some of its flagship announcements, such as a revamped AIpowered Siri, have failed to ship on time. Reports have even suggested that a demo of the new Siri was far from Cook defended the company's approach, insisting that Apple is not interested in speed for its own sake. 'Rushing out the wrong features or the wrong products just to be first would be a mistake,' the company has repeatedly said. 'That's especially true if those products don't work as promised.'Apple says it has already launched more than 20 new AIpowered capabilities under its 'Apple Intelligence' branding. These include Visual Intelligence features, a Writing assistant, and a Cleanup tool. Later this year, the company expects to roll out live translation and an AI workout companion. However, the muchanticipated update to Siri has been pushed back to 2026. Cook said Apple was 'making good progress' on the the call, Cook was asked about the possibility that future hardware, such as the AI glasses recently touted by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, could threaten the dominance of the iPhone.'It's difficult to see a world where iPhones aren't living in it,' Cook replied. 'That doesn't mean that we are not thinking about other things, as well, but I think that the [AI] devices are likely to be complementary devices, not substitutions.'Pressed on which areas of AI technology Apple sees as commoditised, Cook declined to give specifics, saying: 'That would give away part of our strategy.'While the AI future for Apple devices is still under wraps, this year we are excited to see how the rumoured iPhone 17 Air will turn out. It is speculated to be the thinnest iPhone ever in the Apple-verse. The iPhone 17 series is expected to debut next month.- Ends
Time of India
15-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
HCL-Foxconn to have multiplier effect on electronics manufacturing: Minister
New Delhi/Noida: Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a Rs 3,706 crore semiconductor plant in UP's Jewar to be set up by an HCL-Foxconn joint venture. It will manufacture for mobile phones, laptops, and semiconductor facility, the country's sixth, will be located on a 48-acre plot in Sector 28 under YEIDA and is expected to create employment for 2,000 people. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now It will have a design output capacity is 36 million units per month."Once this unit is set up, the display panel plant will also come to India. This will meet 40% of the country's capacity and also meet Foxconn's requirements for rest of the world," IT & electronics minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, adding that the joint venture will become operational in land has been allotted to Vama Sundari Investments (Delhi) Private Limited (VSIPL), a major promoter company of the HCL Group, which holds a 44.17% stake in HCL Technologies."Already five semiconductor units are in advanced stages of construction. With this sixth unit, Bharat moves forward in its journey to develop the strategically vital semiconductor industry. This plant will manufacture display driver chips for mobile phones, laptops, automobiles, PCs, and a myriad of other devices that have displays. The plant is designed for 20,000 wafers per month," govt is the country's biggest manufacturer of electronic products, including having factories for producing Apple's iPhone."Semiconductors are basic components. It will have a multiplier effect on the entire electronics manufacturing in the country," Vaishnaw CEO Arun Vir Singh said the project reflects UP's push to attract investments in high-tech industries like semiconductor manufacturing. The plant will produce compound semiconductors, silicon photonics, sensor fabrication, discrete semiconductors, and also carry out assembly, testing, marking, and packaging (ATMP), as well as outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT).These technologies are critical for the development of next-generation electronics and are expected to contribute to the growth of sectors such as mobile phones, laptops, medical equipment, defence hardware, and power support the project, the Uttar Pradesh govt issued a Letter of Comfort to VSIPL last year, outlining a range of financial and non-financial incentives. As per the commitment, the company will receive a capital subsidy of Rs 919 crore, a land rebate worth Rs 124 crore, and exemption of Rs 1.1 crore in stamp duty and registration addition to this, the project will benefit from a 10-year waiver on electricity duty, support for a dual power grid system, and subsidies on water and electricity usage. While the state govt will fund one of the power grids, the company will build the the need for skilled professionals in the sector, the state will also fund upskilling has been considerable success in development of after the central govt had come up with a Rs 76,000 crore incentive package in December 2021. Under the plan, govt had extended fiscal support of up to 50% of a project's cost to eligible display and semiconductor which had previously failed to get any credible proposals for semiconductor manufacturing after trying for decades, had finally managed to score big when American Micron emerged as the first major player to enter the space with a Rs 22,500 crore testing and packaging unit in Gujarat in June 2023. This was followed up with approval to three proposals worth Rs 1.26 lakh crore in February 2024. These are: Rs 91,000 crore project of Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd to set up India's first semiconductor fab unit with Taiwanese Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp at Dholera in Gujarat; Rs 27,000 crore Semiconductor Assembly and Test (TSAT) unit by Tata in Morigaon, Assam; and Rs 7,600 crore project of CG Power with Japanese Renesas Electronics and Stars Microelectronics of Thailand.
