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Artificial intelligence
TechPolicy

China approves Apple Intelligence for iPhones, with Alibaba, Baidu emerging as partners

After a two-year delay, the iPhone maker is cleared to deploy AI tools on its smartphones by tapping Alibaba and Baidu’s capabilities

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People walk past a booth showcasing Apple’s suppliers during the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing on June 22. Photo: Reuters
Ben Jiangin Beijing
Chinese regulators have granted Apple a long-awaited licence to roll out its artificial intelligence service on iPhones in the country, with Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu serving as technical partners.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s internet watchdog, published a notice on Wednesday confirming the licence for Apple Intelligence – the AI feature used to summarise emails, draft reports, edit images and perform other tasks. It was granted alongside six other smartphone-based AI services, including those for Samsung and Huawei Technologies.

An Alibaba representative told the South China Morning Post on Wednesday that its Qwen large-language model would “be integrated into Apple Intelligence experiences within iOS, iPadOS, macOS and visionOS for users in China”. This would allow users to access the model’s capabilities such as text and image generation, the representative said. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

A Baidu representative also told the SCMP on Wednesday that it was working with Apple to develop AI features for Apple Intelligence in China.

Tencent Holdings and ByteDance, which are reportedly in talks about the AI roll-out, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The licence applied only to iPhone devices, according to the official notice, which did not specify whether other Apple devices sold in China – such as iPad tablets and Mac computers – would also be allowed to deploy Apple Intelligence. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Apple Intelligence and Samsung’s Galaxy AI were the only foreign services to be approved. The five other recipients – Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE – are all local smartphone vendors. ByteDance is a partner of ZTE’s AI service.

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