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.

Popular Stories

ios 18 4 carplay

iOS 18.4 Includes a Small But Useful Change for CarPlay

Sunday February 23, 2025 2:23 pm PST by
The first beta of iOS 18.4 is now available, and it includes a small but useful change for CarPlay. As we noted in our list of iOS 18.4 features, CarPlay now shows a third row of icons, up from two rows previously. However, this change is only visible in vehicles with a larger center display. For example, a MacRumors Forums member noticed the change in a Toyota Tundra, which can be equipped...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
airtag orange

AirTag 2 Rumored to Launch in May or June With These New Features

Monday February 24, 2025 6:11 am PST by
Apple plans to launch a second-generation AirTag in May or June this year, according to a post today from a leaker known as Kosutami. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously reported that a new AirTag would be released in mid-2025. May or June would align with that timeframe. Below, we recap three new features rumored for the AirTag 2: With a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, the...
iphone 17 lineup cad render majin bu

Revealed: Entire iPhone 17 Lineup's Striking New Camera Designs

Monday February 24, 2025 2:49 am PST by
A new CAD render of all the devices in Apple's upcoming iPhone 17 lineup has been shared online by leaker Majin Bu, specifically showing the allegedly different rear camera system designs of the standard iPhone 17, all-new ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air, and the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models. The leaker Majin Bu has had some hits in the past, but some of his information has been wrong,...
iPhone Fold Vertical Feature

Apple's 2026 Foldable iPhone Has No Visible Display Crease – Report

Tuesday February 25, 2025 2:58 am PST by
Apple is making significant headway on its long-rumored foldable iPhone, with a new report suggesting the company has achieved a major breakthrough by effectively eliminating the screen crease that plagues current foldable devices. According to Korean publication ETNews, Apple is finalizing its component suppliers for the foldable iPhone, with the selection process expected to be completed...
trump iphone dictation issue

Apple Fixing 'Trump' Dictation Processing Bug

Tuesday February 25, 2025 1:18 pm PST by
Multiple iPhone owners today noticed a pronunciation processing issue that causes the word "Trump" to momentarily show up when using dictation to send a message with the word "racist." In some cases, when speaking the word racist through the iPhone's built-in dictation feature, the iPhone briefly interprets the spoken word as "Trump" and "Trump" text shows up in the Messages app before being ...
prioritize notifications ios 18 4

Everything New in iOS 18.4 Beta 1

Friday February 21, 2025 1:08 pm PST by
Apple finally released the first beta of iOS 18.4 to developers for testing purposes, and while the beta is lacking some of the Apple Intelligence features we were hoping for, there are some notable new additions. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Priority Notifications - Apple Intelligence There is a new Priority Notifications feature that can show you your most...
airpods pro purple

Here's When AirPods Pro 3 Are Rumored to Launch

Monday February 24, 2025 9:14 am PST by
According to a post on X today from a leaker known as Kosutami, Apple plans to launch AirPods Pro 3 in May or June this year. The leaker also claimed that an AirTag 2 will launch around the same time. Kosutami is best known as a collector of prototype Apple hardware, but they have occasionally shared accurate information about Apple's future product plans. For example, they accurately...

Top Rated Comments

Col4bin Avatar
2 weeks ago
What AI features? You mean all the marketing smoke and mirrors?
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mxrider88 Avatar
2 weeks ago
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: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JohnRckr Avatar
2 weeks ago
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: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
t0rqx Avatar
2 weeks ago
Is it called Apple Intelligence or Alibaba Inteligence?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WarmWinterHat Avatar
2 weeks ago
Ignore Apple AI here or ignore it there. What's the difference?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
hans1972 Avatar
2 weeks ago

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-plans-unsupervised-full-self-210146191.html


Tesla (TSLA ('https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA'), Financials ('https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA')) aims to introduce unsupervised Full Self-Driving in Austin by June 2025, with an expansion across the U.S. by the end of the year, Chief Executive Elon Musk said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call.
Elon Musk Has Been Promising Self-Driving Cars For 10 Years [Update - We Are Now On Year 11]
https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-tesla-self-driving-cars-anniversary-autopilot-1850432357

I'm sceptical of any of Musk's claims.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)