Apple Seeks AI Partner for Apple Intelligence in China

[MacRumors]

With iOS 18, Apple is working with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into the iPhone, where ChatGPT will work alongside Siri to handle requests for AI-generated content. ChatGPT and other similar AI services are not available in China, so Apple needs to find an alternative.

Apple is actively looking for a Chinese company to partner with for its AI features in China, reports The Wall Street Journal. Apple has held talks with Baidu, Alibaba Group, and Beijing startup Baichuan AI, but no deal has emerged.

Apple Intelligence features are going to be limited to an increasingly small number of customers when iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia launch this fall. Apple today said that it would not bring these features to countries in the European Union, and without a deal with a Chinese AI company, China could be out too.

China requires companies to get government approval before rolling out chatbots powered by large language models, and to date, has not approved any AI products that were developed outside of the country. Apple did look into the possibility of getting approval for its own large language model, but found that Chinese regulators were not likely to allow it. To bring Apple Intelligence features to China, Apple has to sign a deal with a Chinese AI company.

It is not clear if Apple would have time to prepare a Chinese version of Apple Intelligence for September even if it did manage to secure a deal in the near future, so Apple Intelligence is not likely to come to China until a later date. Even if Apple did make it happen, Apple Intelligence will only be available in U.S. English at launch, with support for additional languages coming in 2025.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is falling behind competing smartphone companies in China because AI features are already available on devices from top-selling Chinese brands like Vivo, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Honor. Even Samsung has a smartphone with AI integrations in China, as it has partnered with Baidu and Meitu.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Seeks AI Partner for Apple Intelligence in China

 

[Realityck]

Apple is actively looking for a Chinese company to partner with for its AI features in China, reports The Wall Street Journal. Apple has held talks with Baidu, Alibaba Group, and Beijing startup Baichuan AI, but no deal has emerged. Apple Intelligence features are going to be limited to an increasingly small number of customers when iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia launch this fall. Apple today said that it would not bring these features to countries in the European Union, and without a deal with a Chinese AI company, China could be out too.

Seems a Chinese company partner is an absolute necessity for implementing some types of AI features for China consumers/businesses. As in the news today ChatGPT and other similar AI services are banned in China.

 

[supertomtom]

I guess it’ll be providing state-approved/prepared answers to your queries..

Wonder if it’ll still remind people to “check info for mistakes”.

 

[wowotoe]

It's OK for Apple to give up AI market in China. Why train the LLM to return false info?

Besides, nVidia already excluded China & Russia in their future plans. China's AI development will be very limited.

 

[sw1tcher]

Apple is actively looking for a Chinese company to partner with for its AI features in China, reports The Wall Street Journal. Apple has held talks with Baidu, Alibaba Group, and Beijing startup Baichuan AI, but no deal has emerged.

Apple should talk to ByteDance

Someone's going to have to eat some crow for giving me a thumbs down when I said Apple Intelligence wouldn't be coming to China because OpenAI isn't allowed to operate there.

 

[4tune8chance]

With iOS 18, Apple is working with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into the iPhone, where ChatGPT will work alongside Siri to handle requests for AI-generated content. ChatGPT and other similar AI services are not available in China, so Apple needs to find an alternative.

Apple is actively looking for a Chinese company to partner with for its AI features in China, reports The Wall Street Journal. Apple has held talks with Baidu, Alibaba Group, and Beijing startup Baichuan AI, but no deal has emerged.

Apple Intelligence features are going to be limited to an increasingly small number of customers when iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia launch this fall. Apple today said that it would not bring these features to countries in the European Union, and without a deal with a Chinese AI company, China could be out too.

China requires companies to get government approval before rolling out chatbots powered by large language models, and to date, has not approved any AI products that were developed outside of the country. Apple did look into the possibility of getting approval for its own large language model, but found that Chinese regulators were not likely to allow it. To bring Apple Intelligence features to China, Apple has to sign a deal with a Chinese AI company.

It is not clear if Apple would have time to prepare a Chinese version of Apple Intelligence for September even if it did manage to secure a deal in the near future, so Apple Intelligence is not likely to come to China until a later date. Even if Apple did make it happen, Apple Intelligence will only be available in U.S. English at launch, with support for additional languages coming in 2025.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is falling behind competing smartphone companies in China because AI features are already available on devices from top-selling Chinese brands like Vivo, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Honor. Even Samsung has a smartphone with AI integrations in China, as it has partnered with Baidu and Meitu.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Seeks AI Partner for Apple Intelligence in China

Oh great, why don’t you just up all your intellectual secrets. corporate greed trumps national security.

 

[JPack]

Seems a Chinese company partner is an absolute necessity for implementing some types of AI features for China consumers/businesses. As in the news today ChatGPT and other similar AI services are banned in China.

It's rational and I'm pretty sure EU would prefer the same if they had companies that could do AI. Hence the DMA law.

In China, Huawei Ascend chips already match nVidia, so why give billions away to foreign companies when AI can be done domestically?

 

[SR 7]

And you all have an issue with Elon Musk. lol.

 

[chfilm]

Apple said no Apple intelligence in Europe!??? Like never?

 

[subjonas]

I expect the Chinese government to require all Siri inquiries be directed straight to their “Agency of Information”. It’ll just be some government official on a keyboard and headset reading/listening to/recording people’s prompts and replying to some with government-approved answers and rebuking the rest.

I mostly kid.

 

[apparatchik]

Apple should talk to ByteDance

Someone's going to have to eat some crow for giving me a thumbs down when I said Apple Intelligence wouldn't be coming to China because OpenAI isn't allowed to operate there.

Apple has their own home built LLM's and interactions, both small aimed at local processing and large for their private cloud thing. That part of Apple Intelligence can be deployed globally I'd think, as long regulators don't block it (perhaps China).

And then, they have a third type of interactions that are meant to be done with third parties the same way Safari is configured to search with a third-party engine when looking something up in the address bar. They explicitly mentioned ChatGPT as the first of many third-party providers that will be able to be used for AI tasks not covered by Apple's cloud.

In China you can't configure Safari to use Google or Bing as its search engine, and I think they knew from the very beginning that third-party interactions would have to be configurable via hooks or endpoints in order to make them switchable if needed. Perhaps even making it user-configurable in the future just like search engines.

 

[danny842003]

And you all have an issue with Elon Musk. lol.

What is this supposed to mean?

 

[tobybrut]

Apple said no Apple intelligence in Europe!??? Like never?

Makes you wonder if the DMA has something to do with this, such as Apple not being permitted to use their own AI models on device exclusively. Sorry, Apple, says the EU. You have to allow someone else’s model to be on your device to run things locally. Seeing as Apple’s already been fined more than they make in the EU per year just to Spotify and likely to be fined even more years worth of profits, what’s the incentive for Apple to do anything there anymore if they can’t make a profit in the EU? The fine that the EU is likely to level on Apple soon is based on their worldwide income, not just their EU income. That may drive Apple out of the EU entirely if the fine is high enough. If you can’t make any profits, why bother? If the EU isn’t careful, their laws may end up removing more choice than they had before the law.

Granted the reason for no AI in the EU is speculative since I haven’t heard them say why, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the reason.

 

[FineWoven]

China requires companies to get government approval before rolling out chatbots powered by large language models

Jesus that is seriously creepy… Like reading that made me feel genuine discontent and anguish and I’m not even a citizen of that country, thank God. It’s nothing personal against people of Chinese ethnicity, of course. I’ve been fortunate to know many over my lifetime and find the language, culture and history of that part of the world to be endlessly fascinating and impressive. Which is why it’s such a shame to see their government has devolved into such draconian authoritarianism. Despite our flaws and imperfections - of which we have no short supply (especially in recent years) - reminders like these every so often are good for appreciating the value of being a US citizen.

Apple is falling behind competing smartphone companies in China

Apropos of what I mentioned above, this is probably for the best. Maybe not for Apple’s bottom line but definitely for the users of their upcoming AI features.

 

[nicho]

In China you can't configure Safari to use Google or Bing as its search engine

Did you get this info from ChatGPT? It is 100% false.

 

[Le0M]

The real question is: will vpns be enough to use Apple Intelligence regardless the user's location?

 

[calisurfboy]

For several months rumor sites ran with the headline

iOS 18 reportedly 'biggest' update in history​

The update has left me a little underwhelmed. To top it off, most of the demonstrated features will not come out for some time.... if at all (depending upon your location).

 

[Shirasaki]

It's OK for Apple to give up AI market in China. Why train the LLM to return false info?

Besides, nVidia already excluded China & Russia in their future plans. China's AI development will be very limited.

View attachment 2390884

Not “limited” in a sense that they don’t know anything outside of Chinese and Chinese language. Besides, they can and will definitely steal both public and private domain information to train their foreign language AI models, then brag about how versatile their AI is while US and its allies cannot counter-steal effectively because of limited Chinese intranet access. There are only so many Chinese living outside of China anyways.

 

[fzJNotIBOxgnbqejSeVCvJScL]

Seek what partner? All Chinese firms and foreign firms operating in China already have the Chinese Communist Party ("The Party") as a partner whether they like it or not.

 

[coffeemilktea]

An AI partner in China? I'm pretty sure the first choice should be Chat Xi PT.

 

[dampfnudel]

First Apple needed to reach out and “consult” their old partner in crime, the Chinese government which I assume they have by now.

 

[SoldOnApple]

There's a few government approved AIs to choose from in China, assuming Apple is willing to work with corporations they would rather not work with just to get the best AI that is.

 

[SoldOnApple]

Seek what partner? All Chinese firms and foreign firms operating in China already have the Chinese Communist Party ("The Party") as a partner whether they like it or not.

Not exactly a hot take. You're probably free to develop your own AI without party approval in China, you just can't sell it to be baked into phones for real people to use. It's basically like getting FCC approval or whatever in the US.

 

[Bustycat]

Baidu's Ernie Bot (文心一言) will be a highly possible candidate and Apple users will be recommended to consult a Putian hospital for medical treatments.

 

[one more]

Apple said no Apple intelligence in Europe!??? Like never?

They said it will come later, once they “figure out how to make it DMA compatible”, probably some time in 2025, no worries. 🖐️

Apple Intelligence Features Not Coming to European Union at Launch Due to DMA

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