[How About This Book] AI Semiconductor Era... Apple and Nvidia Face Off, Who Will Be the Final Winner?

Apple Faces Investor Neglect in AI Era
Steady Investment Makes It a Hidden Power in Semiconductor Market
Top 10 Supplier with World-Class Design Capability

Apple became the first company worldwide to surpass a market capitalization of $3 trillion in June last year. However, as of the 2nd, its market capitalization has decreased to $2.614 trillion. In January this year, Apple lost its top market cap position to Microsoft ($2.935 trillion).

Investors are turning away from Apple, saying that the mobile era led by Apple is ending and the era of artificial intelligence (AI) has arrived.

However, the author of "Apple Nvidia Shockwave" argues that Apple can still exert significant power in the AI era. The emergence of AI has brought a new turning point to the semiconductor industry, and Apple is a hidden powerhouse in the semiconductor market. The author explains that while the public perceives Apple as an iPhone and iMac manufacturer, in reality, Apple is among the top 10 semiconductor suppliers worldwide and has the world's best semiconductor design capabilities.

Apple has been steadily investing in semiconductors for a long time. The late Steve Jobs wanted to own and control all the fundamental technologies of Apple. Apple opened the era of application processor (AP) semiconductors for smartphones by launching the iPhone in 2007. At that time, Jobs said, "People who are serious about software must also make hardware themselves." The author introduces this statement as one that already considered semiconductors for PCs. Jobs was eyeing not only the newly opened AP semiconductor market but also the existing PC semiconductor market.

Jobs' legacy was passed on to Tim Cook and bore important fruit in 2020. In June of that year, Apple unveiled its own system-on-chip (SoC) "Apple Silicon," which replaced the Intel central processing units (CPUs) used in Apple PCs. Five months later, Apple's first PC semiconductor, the M1 chip, was officially introduced, outperforming competitors' products in terms of performance and power consumption. By placing importance on semiconductors, Apple broke the dominance of Intel, the semiconductor king of the PC era, and led to the departure of Jonathan Ive, who was responsible for Apple's design.

Effective Use of GPUs in AI Training Process
Nvidia in Spotlight, Holding 90% Market Share
Stock Price Doubled, Market Cap 3rd, Could Surpass Apple

The author views that the semiconductor industry, which emerged with the advent of computers, has reached a new growth turning point with AI following smartphones. Semiconductors are the core components that enable AI to learn and infer from massive amounts of data. For new AI features like ChatGPT to be integrated into smartphones and PCs in the future, new semiconductors will be necessary. There is even a forecast that AI semiconductors will account for 30% of the total semiconductor market by the 2030s.

Because of these prospects, Nvidia is gaining attention. Nvidia, which has focused on developing graphics processing units (GPUs) rather than CPUs, has unexpectedly emerged as the darling of the AI era. It has been proven that using GPUs in the AI training process is much more effective than CPUs. Currently, Nvidia holds about 90% of the AI semiconductor market. Thanks to this, Nvidia's stock price has doubled just this year. Its market capitalization is $2.0076 trillion, ranking third in the world after Apple. There are even forecasts that it could soon surpass Apple.

"Apple Nvidia Shockwave" is a book that examines the fierce competition already foreshadowed in market capitalization trends between Apple and Nvidia, and the new trends in the semiconductor market led by AI. The collision between Apple, which has already firmly established its ecosystem, and Nvidia is seen as inevitable.

Along with Apple and Nvidia, which are the most notable in the AI semiconductor market, the book also looks at the strategies of semiconductor companies that once dominated the market, such as Intel, Samsung Electronics, Qualcomm, and AMD. It also examines Microsoft, which rose to the world's number one market cap by investing in OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and TSMC, a foundry company with a solid position that counts both Apple and Nvidia as clients.

The author is a journalist with 25 years of experience, having long covered information technology (IT) and international economics. He worked as a New York correspondent for two years and covered fabs of Samsung, IBM, and AMD. Based on extensive reporting experience, he provides a broad perspective on the semiconductor industry's inception, present, and future.

Apple Nvidia Shockwave | Written by Baek Jongmin | Sejong Books | 372 pages | 23,000 KRW