Apple trims capex 29% to $9 billion as AI R&D jumps 32%

Apple's fiscal 2026 results, released Monday, show a company routing its AI push through the income statement rather than the balance sheet. Research and development rose 32% to $45.8 billion, while property, plant and equipment spending fell to $9 billion from $12.7 billion a year earlier. That combination is unusual among large technology firms, several of which have been building out expensive computing infrastructure.

The R&D increase tracks with visible product work. In September, Apple rolled out a revamped, AI-powered Siri that draws on information in users' messages, emails and other personal data, understands screen content and takes actions across apps. In June, the company said it was expanding its Private Cloud Compute system beyond its own data centers, using Google's cloud infrastructure and NVIDIA chips for more demanding AI tasks while maintaining Apple's privacy and security protections. Those arrangements let Apple add AI capacity through partners rather than owned facilities, which appears consistent with the lower capex figure.

Spending discipline showed up within the year as well. R&D was roughly flat sequentially at about $11.7 billion in the fourth quarter, and operating expenses were $19.2 billion versus $19.1 billion in the third quarter. For the fiscal year ended in September, operating expenses rose 22% to $75.5 billion, and Parekh guided to 11% to 13% growth in the December quarter on continued AI R&D.