According to a report released by the information on Tuesday, Apple has partnered with Alibaba to bring the Apple Intelligence Platform to China. The deal is reportedly the iPhone maker investigated a potential partnership between Uber-Buzzy AI startup DeepSeek and bytedance, but was eventually rejected.
Although Apple initially chose Baidu as its partner to provide Apple Intelligence to its Chinese customers, the challenges of adapting the Chinese search giant’s models were clearly too big to overcome.
China is an important market for the company, but its flagship features have not yet debuted in the world’s largest smartphone market. CEO Tim Cook cites the lack of Apple Intelligence as the driving force behind the recent decline in 11% of iPhone sales in China. Domestic phone makers, including Huawei, rushed to fill that vacuum.
The new report comes ahead of Apple’s expected fourth-generation iPhone SE launch. Budget-focused mobile phones have historically been a key driver of iPhone sales in both China and India, respectively, and are the world’s first and second largest smartphone markets.
Apple previously partnered with Openai for the US launch of Apple Intelligence. That transaction adds ChatGpt access to Siri Smart Assistant. Apple also says it is open to additional partnerships, including Google’s Gemini.