Apple Plans to Invest More Than $250 Mln to Expand Singapore Campus

People shop at an Apple reseller store iBox at a mall in Jakarta on April 17, 2024. (Photo by Adek BERRY / AFP)
People shop at an Apple reseller store iBox at a mall in Jakarta on April 17, 2024. (Photo by Adek BERRY / AFP)
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Apple Plans to Invest More Than $250 Mln to Expand Singapore Campus

People shop at an Apple reseller store iBox at a mall in Jakarta on April 17, 2024. (Photo by Adek BERRY / AFP)
People shop at an Apple reseller store iBox at a mall in Jakarta on April 17, 2024. (Photo by Adek BERRY / AFP)

Apple Inc plans to invest more than $250 million to expand its regional campus or operations in Ang Mo Kio, Singapore, according to a company statement dated April 17.
Two buildings acquired in 2022, located across from Apple's existing offices, will undergo a major upgrade, the US technology giant said.
"Singapore is truly a one-of-a-kind place, and we are proud of the connection we've built with this dynamic community of creators, learners, and dreamers," Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, said in a statement.
Apple opened its first facility in Singapore in 1981 with 72 employees focused on Apple II, its early personal computer.
It has since grown to house more than 3,600 employees in the city-state, which serves as an operations center for Apple in the region.
Cook will meet Singapore's prime minister-designate Lawrence Wong as well as the city-state's incumbent leader Lee Hsien Loong this week as part of his Southeast Asia tour, Bloomberg News reported earlier on Wednesday, citing a person familiar with the matter.



OpenAI Enters Google-Dominated Search Market with SearchGPT 

OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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OpenAI Enters Google-Dominated Search Market with SearchGPT 

OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)

OpenAI is venturing into a territory long dominated by Google with the selective launch of SearchGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered search engine with real-time access to information from the internet.

The move, announced on Thursday, also places the AI giant in competition with its largest backer Microsoft's Bing search and emerging services such as Perplexity — a search-focused AI chatbot firm backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and semiconductor giant Nvidia.

Shares of Google's parent company Alphabet ended 3% lower on Thursday after OpenAI's announcement.

OpenAI said it has opened sign-ups for the new tool, which is currently in the prototype stage and is being tested with a small group of users and publishers. The company plans to integrate the best features from the search tool into ChatGPT in the future.

"AI-powered search tools from OpenAI and Perplexity re-affirm search as a content engagement model but pressure Google to be better at its own game," Canaccord Genuity analyst Kingsley Crane said.

Google dominates the search engine market with a 91.1% share as of June, according to web analytics firm Statcounter.

SearchGPT will provide summarized search results with source links in response to user queries, OpenAI said in a blog post. Users will also be able to ask follow-up questions and receive contextual responses.

The company will give publishers access to tools for managing how their content appears in SearchGPT results. News Corp and The Atlantic are publishing partners for SearchGPT.

SearchGPT signals a closer collaboration between publishers and OpenAI, following content licensing agreements with major organizations like Associated Press, News Corp and Axel Springer.

"Newer AI-powered search providers could face challenges of their own, with Perplexity already facing pending legal action from publishers like Wired and Forbes, and Condé Nast," said Crane.

Major search engines have been trying to integrate AI into search since ChatGPT first launched in November 2022. Microsoft, through its early investment, adopted OpenAI technology for its Bing search engine, while Google rolled out AI-powered summaries for the wider public at its developer conference in May.

Google did not respond to a Reuters query on the potential impact of SearchGPT on its business.

Reuters had earlier reported on OpenAI's plans around AI search in May.