New Delhi, Sept. 2 -- John Ternus, who has taken charge of Apple Inc as CEO, inherits a mixed bag of fortune. The company, worth some $4.6 trillion, has more than 2.5 billion active devices in people's hands and an enviable cash pile, but is widely seen as an artificial intelligence (AI) laggard.

The iPhone marketer was late to Generative AI, has yet to wow users with Agentic AI, and earned eyerolls with its first attempt at AI-run Siri assistance. For its AI services, it mostly relies on Google's Gemini. Apple Intelligence, its own version of this technology marvel, has been thinking different.

While Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Amazon invest big capital in data centres and AI infrastructure, a capex race that some investors fear has ...