Mac Purchase by OpenAI Sparks Narrative Catalyst for AAPL
OpenAI has indeed purchased Macs for training its AI models, but the financial impact of this transaction on Apple's (AAPL.US) stock is likely to be minimal. According to estimates, tens of thousands of machines at a cost of $1,500, $4,000 each would translate to a one-time expenditure of only $30M, $320M, which is just a rounding error compared to the company's quarterly revenue of $10.4B.
While this purchase might be seen as a validation of Apple silicon as real AI training hardware, it's essential to note that NVIDIA (NVDA.US) still dominates the data center market with 92.5% of its revenue coming from this segment, and just printed an impressive $89B quarter.
The setup is crucial here: Apple is trading near its richest valuation in five years, while NVIDIA is at a relatively low price-to-earnings ratio. Institutional investors have shown no significant rotation between the two stocks, with most still favoring NVIDIA over Apple.