Apple - Meta join hands in the AI ​​era

Source: MARKET.US - Data: NGOC DUC - Graphics: TAN DAT

On June 23, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that Apple is negotiating with Meta (Facebook's parent company) about integrating the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Llama 3 into the company's Apple Intelligence platform.

If signed, this would be an unbelievable handshake between two technology companies that have been on opposite sides of the "battle line" for many years, but also reflects the general trend of the entire AI industry.

Race on iPhone

Citing sources familiar with the technology industry, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) confirmed that the leaders of the two billion-dollar technology corporations have begun negotiations to bring Llama 3 to Apple's most advanced devices. If the negotiation process is successful, Llama 3 will be one of the AI ​​chatbots (virtual communication tools) that users can choose to integrate into Apple's operating system.

Like other popular AI chatbots such as ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), CoPilot (Microsoft)..., Meta's Llama 3 has the ability to receive data in text, images, voice... to process and return results according to user requests.

Meanwhile, Apple Intelligence is the AI ​​platform announced by Apple at the 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2024) on June 10. This platform includes a large language AI model (LLM) developed by Apple itself, deeply integrated into the operating system of devices to smoothly handle users' daily tasks.

Additionally, for complex or highly specialized tasks, users can ask the operating system to send data directly to a third-party AI chatbot for processing. This is where chatbots on the market appear, with OpenAI's ChatGPT being the first product that Apple "chosen to entrust".

At WWDC 2024, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Craig Federighi confirmed that the corporation would negotiate with other leading AI companies to bring their products to Apple devices. Since then, information about AI "giants" such as Google, Anthropic, Perplexity negotiating with Apple has appeared one after another, with Meta being the latest company to be reported.

Opportunity to reach billions of users

The WSJ said the deal between Apple and Meta is not yet complete and there is still a possibility that the negotiations will fall apart. However, both sides are betting on the deal to succeed because of the benefits it could bring.

For Meta, it was the opportunity to distribute directly to the more than 2 billion active Apple devices worldwide (figures announced by Apple in February) that attracted OpenAI to sign an agreement with Apple.

Gene Munster, a longtime Apple analyst at consulting firm Deepwater Asset Management, said the deal could double ChatGPT’s user base, with about 10 to 20 percent of those users paying for premium chatbot subscriptions and generating billions of dollars in revenue for the AI ​​company.

The deal is made more attractive by the fact that Apple doesn’t require either party to pay the other. Instead, Apple only wants to take a commission from any subscription payments made by chatbots on its devices.

Thanks to Apple, OpenAI and Meta have the opportunity to reach extremely powerful users at a completely acceptable cost. In other words, this is a low-risk, high-reward deal that the entire AI industry wants to be a part of.

On the other hand, Apple will diversify its customer options. Mr. Federighi once affirmed that users have different work requirements and need different AI chatbots to solve them. Besides, bringing other chatbots to its devices is also a move by Apple to "not put all eggs in one basket".

Another aspect to note is that AI is still in its infancy. It is entirely possible that latecomers will break through and overtake the companies with large market shares in the next few years. This requires two main conditions: attracting talent and having a strong infrastructure to develop AI.

Meta is one of the tech companies that is going all-in on AI. The company has increased its 2024 capital spending forecast to between $35 billion and $40 billion, with most of it going into AI.

Mr. Zuckerberg also proudly boasted that by the end of 2024, Meta will own more than 340,000 Nvidia H100 graphics processing units (GPUs) - the most sought-after chip product for developing generative AI. In 2023, the corporation is said to have received 150,000 H100s, on par with the giant Microsoft and at least three times more than any other competitor.

“We have amassed computing power at a scale greater than any single company,” Zuckerberg said. This promises a high probability that Llama 3 and later versions will explode in the future, and Apple does not want to miss this opportunity for long-term cooperation.

Will there be an unbelievable deal?

The opening of negotiations between Apple and Meta shows the trend of seemingly "unimaginable" cooperation deals between technology companies in the AI ​​era.

Over the past few years, Apple and Meta have been at loggerheads over many core business aspects. Apple has made user privacy and security a guiding principle and a fundamental value for its products.

On the other hand, Meta's business model revolves around selling advertising and requires a huge amount of user data. CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself had to testify before the US Congress about the scandals related to the corporation's user data fraud.

The tension peaked in 2021 when Apple introduced new privacy-enhancing measures for its devices. Meta admitted that Apple's move would cost the company $10 billion in lost revenue in 2022.

In April 2024, Meta posted instructions encouraging partners to pay advertising fees directly on the websites of the group's social networks, instead of paying via mobile software to bypass Apple's 30% "platform fee".

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/apple-meta-bat-tay-trong-ky-nguyen-ai-20240625003402577.htm