After a two-year delay, the iPhone maker is cleared to deploy AI tools on its smartphones by tapping Alibaba and Baidu’s capabilities
long-awaited licenceto 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.
Alibabarepresentative 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.
Baiduwould also provide certain functions, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Tencent Holdingsand ByteDance, which are also reportedly in talks about the AI roll-out, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
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.