Apple Confirmed to Partner With Alibaba in China for AI-Powered Apple Intelligence Features: Report

Alibaba chairperson Joseph Tsai reportedly confirmed that Apple has officially partnered with the company for AI features.

Written by Akash Dutta, Edited by Siddharth Suvarna | Updated: 14 February 2025 14:59 IST

Apple Confirmed to Partner With Alibaba in China for AI-Powered Apple Intelligence Features: Report

Photo Credit: Apple

The financial details of the partnership between Apple and Alibaba are currently undisclosed

Highlights

Tsai also said that Apple spoke to multiple companies for AI services
Tsai gave the confirmation at the World Governments Summit 2025 in Dubai
Apple reportedly also considered DeepSeek’s AI models

Apple's partnership with Alibaba was reportedly confirmed on Thursday. As per the report, Alibaba chairperson Joseph Chung-Hsin Tsai confirmed the news at the recently concluded World Governments Summit 2025 held in Dubai. The Chinese e-commerce giant will reportedly offer its artificial intelligence (AI) models and infrastructure to power Apple Intelligence features in China. The two entities have reportedly co-developed several AI-powered features that will cater to Apple's Chinese user base, and it is currently awaiting regulatory approval. No other details are currently known.

Alibaba Chairperson Confirms Partnership With Apple

According to a Reuters report, the Alibaba chairperson confirmed that the company is working with Apple to develop and support the latter's AI features. “They talked to a number of companies in China. In the end, they chose to do business with us. They want to use our AI to power their phones. We feel extremely honoured to do business with a great company like Apple,” Tsai was quoted as saying.

Interestingly, the Alibaba chairperson also said that the Cupertino-based tech giant discussed the partnership with several other Chinese companies, confirming a previous report. It was said that the iPhone maker approached Tencent, TikTok's parent company ByteDance, Baidu, and DeepSeek, however, a deal could not be struck with any of them. Apple reportedly found DeepSeek to lack the necessary manpower and experience to cater to its large user base in the country.

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The report also claimed that Apple and Alibaba had co-developed several AI features and had submitted them to Chinese regulators for approval. Notably, the iPhone maker could not offer its AI features to users as China requires approval from its regulators before any company can develop or offer AI services. So far, no company outside of China has been approved by its government.

Apple reportedly decided to work with Alibaba as the e-commerce giant is said to have stored a massive amount of personal data containing its users' shopping and payment behaviour. The Cupertino-based company reportedly believes that the data will allow it to build and provide more customised AI features and services.

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Further reading: Apple, Alibaba, Apple Intelligence, AI, Artificial Intelligence, China

Akash Dutta Email Akash Dutta

Akash Dutta is a Senior Sub Editor at Gadgets 360. He is particularly interested in the social impact of technological developments and loves reading about emerging fields such as AI, metaverse, and fediverse. In hi... more »