Apple Partners With Alibaba to Bring iPhone AI Features to China

Apple will partner with Alibaba to offer AI features in China, the Chinese company's chairman said on Thursday, resolving months of speculation around Apple's strategy in the region.

iphone 16 apple intelligence

"They talked to a number of companies in China," said Joe Tsai at the World Government Summit in Dubai. "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."

Alibaba stocks surged as much as 8.6% on a report by The Information that Apple is working with the e-commerce giant to roll out AI features in China. Apple has not yet rolled out its full suite of AI features in the country because of regulations that require it to partner with a local company.

Apple devices outside of the country use a combination of proprietary Apple Intelligence and OpenAI's ChatGPT to provide AI features. The Information reports that both Alibaba and Apple have already submitted materials to authorities for approval.

Today's development follows news earlier in the week that Apple "passed over" the Chinese AI company DeepSeek, which recently made waves in the industry for being developed at a significantly lower cost than rivals. Today's report says that Apple initially considered Baidu as its primary AI partner last year, but its AI models did not meet Apple's requirements.

The AI partnership comes at a crucial time for Apple, which faced a significant setback in China in 2024, relinquishing its position as the country's top smartphone vendor. According to market research firm Canalys, Apple's annual shipments in the country declined by 17%, creating an opportunity for domestic manufacturer Vivo to take the lead.

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Top Rated Comments

mxrider88 Avatar
2 hours ago at 02:54 am
Forced to rely on third parties because they were sleeping while the whole planet moved forward with generative AI. Too busy releasing features for kids and emojis, with developers that can't write ten lines of code bug free. Wow how far they came.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Col4bin Avatar
3 hours ago at 02:12 am
What AI features? You mean all the marketing smoke and mirrors?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JohnRckr Avatar
3 hours ago at 02:11 am
Not like they got offer much anyway..
If sales in China were already bad, half-baked 3 years behind competition AI gimmick won’t raise the numbers.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DelayedGratificationGene Avatar
3 hours ago at 02:19 am
Nice Apple. Alibaba is the best choice. China market waiting for this.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Realityck Avatar
2 hours ago at 02:58 am
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/13/apple-will-integrate-alibabas-ai-into-iphones-in-china-chairman-joe-tsai-says.html


Alibaba is among China’s technology giants that have built their own large language models and voice assistant’s
Sounds like both can reinforce each other
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)