Alibaba Confirms Its AI Will Power China’s Apple Intelligence

Chinese company Alibaba has announced a partnership with Apple to roll out artificial intelligence features on iPhones in China. Apple Intelligence features have not yet been implemented in China, which is believed to have contributed to the company’s slowdown in smartphone sales. Apple previously tested AI models from startup DeepSeek, but has decided to hold off on implementing them on its devices in China, at least for now.

Image Source: Apple

«”They talked to a number of companies in China. In the end, they decided to do business with us. They want to use our AI to power their phones,” Alibaba Chairman Joseph Tsai said. “We are very proud to be doing business with a great company like Apple.”

The partnership decision does not mean Apple is abandoning its partnerships with other Chinese tech companies. Apple continues to work with Baidu on “an AI-powered search feature that can process images and text,” as well as updates to the Chinese version of Siri. The company has previously evaluated AI models from Tencent, ByteDance, and DeepSeek.

Any consumer-facing AI features require approval from Chinese regulators, and Apple and Alibaba have already submitted AI features they jointly developed for use in Apple devices in the Chinese market to the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) for approval.

IPhone sales in China have been steadily declining lately. In 2024, Apple lost its lead in smartphone sales, ranking third in the fourth quarter after Huawei and Xiaomi. Analysts have repeatedly attributed the sales lag to the lack of AI features in the iPhone in China, and now Apple will try to catch up.

Outside of China, Apple Intelligence is powered by a combination of Apple’s proprietary technology and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.