AsianFin -- Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook said Thursday the company is prepared to ramp up spending to bolster its position in artificial intelligence, including building out more data center infrastructure or potentially acquiring a major player in the space—a notable shift for a company long known for its conservative approach to capital deployment.

Cook’s comments mark a rare acknowledgment that Apple is playing catch-up to rivals such as Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, both of which have surged ahead with AI assistants and chatbots that now boast hundreds of millions of users.

That rapid ascent has come with a massive price tag: Google plans to invest $85 billion in the coming year, while Microsoft is expected to spend over $100 billion—primarily on cloud and AI data centers.