Apple selects Alibaba for AI features in China
Apple selects Alibaba for AI features in China
Apple will work with the Chinese technology giant Alibaba to introduce AI services on the world's largest market for mobile phones. This step ends for months of uncertainties for the company based in Cupertino.
partnership between Apple and Alibaba
"Apple was very picky. They spoke to numerous companies in China and ultimately decided to do business with us. They want to use our AI to improve their phones," said Joe Tsai, Chairman from Alibaba, on Thursday during a speech at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.
Details on a time frame for the introduction or whether alibaba will be the exclusive partner has not yet been announced. The news about the partnership was first published by the information. The report said that Apple also considered other Chinese AI companies such as Deepseek, Baidu, Bytedance and Tencent before ultimately chosen Alibaba. CNN asked Apple and Alibaba for further comments.
regulatory challenges in China
Due to local compliance requirements and regulatory concerns, Apple has so far been able to offer its AI service, Apple Intelligence, only in limited markets, including the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. The Chinese government demands that foreign AI providers work together with a local company and obtain approval from the regulatory authorities.market changes and competition
Apple has lost market shares in domestic rivals such as Huawei and Vivo in China. According to Lucas Zhong, market analyst at Canalys, a market research company, AI services are expected to help Apple to win users in China, but there are still challenges. "Apple is faced with a much more challenging competitive environment in China, especially in view of the strong return of Huawei. To rely only on AI services could not be enough to bring about the turn," he said.
Apple dominated the Chinese high-end smartphone market for years before Huawei became more important and became a serious competition. In 2019, US President Donald Trump put commercial restrictions on Huawei. These restrictions initially hit Huawei's business hard, but ultimately motivated the company to adapt and innovation. The market launch of the Mate 60 Pro in 2023 led to a Investigation by the US government .
Current market shares and investor trust
in 2022 Huawei recorded a market share of 16 % in China and thus overtook Apple's 15 %, so the Data from Canalys . In 2023, however, Apple was the largest mobile phone seller in the country with a market share of 19 %, while Huawei horn with 12 %.
The confirmed partnership with Apple has strengthened the trust of investors in Alibaba. The stocks listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange have increased by more than 40 % since reaching a two -year lows in January.
technological developments
Shortly after the Chinese start-up Deepseek presented a AI model in January that amazed Wall Street, Alibaba presented its latest version of the QWen Ki model and explained that it was better than the competition model R1.
At the same event, Elon Musk said that the next generation of the large language model of his company Xai, Grok 3, should be published in one to two weeks. He described it as the best AI chat bot on the market. "In the tests we have carried out so far, Grok 3 exceeds everything we know," said the tech mogul.
Musk founded Xai with the aim of challenging Openaai, the company he co-founded and other AI giants like Google.
Hassan Tayir contributed to research.
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