Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly told the official China News Service that DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence (AI) models are “excellent.”
Cook said this on the sidelines of the China Development Forum in Beijing, a day before Apple is set to hold its developer conference in Shanghai, the South China Morning Post reported Monday (March 24).
At the developer conference, Apple is expected to share details about Apple Intelligence with Chinese developers, according to the report.
The company is waiting for final approval to add Apple Intelligence to iPhones in the country, the report said.
When a new AI model from DeepSeek was launched in January, tech stocks plunged as the company claimed it achieved performance comparable to those of U.S. rivals while using substantially fewer Nvidia chips.
During Apple’s Jan. 30 earnings call, Cook was asked about the rise of DeepSeek and said, “In general, I think innovation that drives efficiency is a good thing. And that’s what you see in that model.”
In February, a top executive from China’s Alibaba said his company partnered with Apple to help bring AI-powered iPhones to China.
“They want to use our AI to power their phones, so we’re very fortunate and extremely honored to be able to do business with a great company like Apple,” Joe Tsai, Alibaba’s chair, said at a conference in Dubai.
It was reported in January that Apple’s iPhone sales dropped 5% late last year amid stronger competition from Chinese rivals and that much of the decline could be attributed to the lack of Apple’s AI features on phones sold in China.
One roadblock was that Apple had not yet been able to add those features to iPhone 16s sold in China even as Chinese companies like Huawei added them. The company was trying to secure partnerships with Chinese companies to roll out its AI features.
China requires generative AI operators to secure government permission before they can debut a product.
“Apple’s iPhone 16 series was met with a mixed response, partly due to a lack of availability of Apple Intelligence at launch,” Tarun Pathak, director at Counterpoint Research, said at the time.
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