Apple Reportedly Links With Alibaba for Chinese AI Rollout

Apple reportedly found a partner to help it bring its artificial intelligence features to devices in China.

The iPhone maker is working with Chinese tech giant Alibaba to develop and launch its Apple Intelligence AI offering in the crucial market, The Information reported Tuesday (Feb. 11), citing an unnamed source.

Apple and Alibaba submitted the AI features they developed to China’s cyberspace regulator, according to the report.

Neither Apple nor Alibaba replied to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

Apple introduced its AI features last year after unveiling the iPhone 16. However, the Chinese government required the company to work with local tech developers in building all AI models for devices sold in that country.

That issue has held back Apple’s growth in China at a time when the company is already losing ground to local smartphone makers and facing an investigation by Chinese regulators into its App Store practices.

Apple began testing various AI models from Chinese developers in 2023, ultimately choosing Baidu as its main partner, per the report. However, that arrangement was canceled when Baidu’s efforts fell short of Apple’s standards.

Apple then began considering other partners, reviewing models from companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, TikTok owner ByteDance, and industry upstart DeepSeek, the report said.

Apple decided not to go with DeepSeek, as that company’s team did not have the experience or staffing levels needed to support a company of Apple’s size, according to the report.

On an earnings call late last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the iPhone 16 models saw stronger sales in markets where Apple Intelligence features were available. In China, the company’s sales fell 11.1% during the latest quarter to $18.51 billion, the greatest drop in revenues there since the same quarter in 2024, when they declined by 12.9%.

“We did see that the markets where we had rolled out Apple Intelligence, that the year-over-year performance on the iPhone 16 family was stronger than those where Apple Intelligence was not available,” Cook told analysts during the company’s earnings call.

This shows that the new AI capabilities, such as features like writing tools, Image Playground, Genmoji and Visual Intelligence, are fueling customer demand, he said.

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