Photo: Unsplash
Apple will rely on Alibaba to bring Apple Intelligence to China. While the Cupertino giant launched its AI features with iOS 18.1 late last year, they are yet to go live in China.
Apple reportedly held talks with several Chinese companies, including Baidu and ByteDance, to power its AI services in the country.
Apple finalizes Alibaba for iPhone’s AI features in China
iPhone sales have been falling in China for the last few quarters due to heavy competition from local players like Huawei and Xiaomi. Apple is also the only major smartphone manufacturer that has yet to launch its AI services in the country, making new iPhones less attractive to customers. In comparison, Chinese smartphone makers are incorporating cutting-edge AI features into their devices.
Now, in a major breakthrough, Apple will partner with Alibaba to power its AI services in China. Reuters reports Alibaba’s chairman, Joseph Tsai, revealed this while speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai.
“They talked to a number of companies in China. In the end they chose to do business with us. They want to use our AI to power their phones. We feel extremely honoured to do business with a great company like Apple,” said the Alibaba chairman. He did not confirm when Apple will make its AI features live in the country. It is also unclear if Apple will partly rely on its AI engine or solely on Alibaba’s models.
Apple partnering with other tech companies to improve the Apple Intelligence experience
By partnering with a local Chinese company, Apple will be better able to navigate all the regulatory hurdles in the country. Outside of China, Apple has partnered with OpenAI to pass on more complex queries from Apple Intelligence to ChatGPT.
Despite all the hype, Apple Intelligence has not been as impressive. It also seems Apple’s pace of innovation in the AI field is slower than that of Google and its other rivals.