- Winning the AI race has long been Apple's goal.
- In 2018, the company brought in Google's AI head John Giannandrea to lead its AI efforts.
- But cultural clashes and a lack of computing resources set back Apple's ambitions.
Apple may seem to be lagging behind in the AI race right now, but it's not for a lack of trying.
The Cupertino-based tech giant was aiming to dominate the field when it hired Google's AI head John Giannandrea in 2018.
But Giannandrea's team was plagued by cultural clashes and a lack of computing resources and accomplished little, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The media outlet said Giannandrea was hired to lead the iPhone maker's AI strategy and improve its digital assistant, Siri.
Prior to joining Apple, the Scottish software engineer spent eight years at search giant Google, where he led the company's machine intelligence, research and search teams.
But Giannandrea's team, made up mostly of ex-Googlers and staff from startups Apple had acquired, struggled to fit in with the rest of the company.
Cultural clashes fueled internal tensions
While Apple placed a strong emphasis on setting and meeting strict deadlines, Giannandrea's staff tended to copy Google's loose-deadline approach, and the culture clash made it difficult for other Apple engineers to work with Giannandrea's team, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In fact, some teams have completely ignored Giannandrea and moved on with their own AI projects.
A former Apple employee told The Wall Street Journal that the company's software chief, Craig Federighi, had instructed staff to develop custom AI features for image and video recognition.
AI chip shortage limits Apple's efforts
The situation was made worse by Apple's failure to purchase enough AI processors.
The chips are coveted by technology companies looking to establish themselves in the field and are essential for training AI models.
A lack of computing resources has limited Apple's AI efforts, forcing Giannandrea's team to turn to external cloud services such as Google to train models, The Wall Street Journal reported.
An Apple representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by BI outside of regular business hours.
Apple's AI struggles highlight the big challenges facing tech giants as they seek to assume leadership positions in the field.
First, talented AI talent is scarce and hard to find, making recruitment a zero-sum game and leading tech giants to aggressively poach talent with exorbitant salaries.
In March, The Information reported that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had sought to recruit an AI researcher from Google's DeepMind in a personally written email.
Even if money weren't an issue, tech companies would still have to contend with ongoing shortages of AI processors made by semiconductor giants like Nvidia.
The fierce race for semiconductors has been a huge boon for Nvidia's stock price, which has risen more than 3,300% over the past five years.
On Wednesday, Nvidia's market capitalization surpassed $3 trillion, overtaking Apple to become the second most valuable company in the world.
For now, it looks like Apple is trying to win the AI race with a different strategy: partnering with Sam Altman's OpenAI.
According to Bloomberg, Apple is set to announce its partnership with ChatGPT maker at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June, where the company is also expected to unveil other AI products, including an overhaul of Siri.
On February 28, Axel Springer, the parent company of Business Insider, along with 31 other media groups, filed a $2.3 billion lawsuit against Google in a Dutch court, alleging damages caused by the company's advertising practices.
