Apple Intelligence in China: A long road to iPhone AI
It will probably be a while before Apple Intelligence lands in the People's Republic. Apple could probably shorten the path, but doesn't seem to want to.
Apple logo with Chinese flag and electronics: AI as a sales tool.
(Image: Erstellt mit Midjourney durch Mac & i)
AI functions have long since become a success factor in China too: Local smartphone manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Honor and Huawei explicitly advertise them. This is a problem for Apple: due to local conditions, the company cannot initially offer Apple Intelligence in the People's Republic. This is likely to remain the case for quite some time, reports the Financial Times.
"Difficult and long process" for Apple AI
The entire rollout of Apple Intelligence, which has been part of the most important Apple operating systems since iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1, is only taking place in stages. Initially, the function is only limited to US English, is not officially planned in Europe before April 2025 due to regulatory fears (except with tricks and on the Mac) and is completely deactivated in China. However, AI was to become a selling point for the iPhone 16 series. However, this currently only works in the United States, and more functions such as AI image generators will only appear on the devices in the coming weeks.
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It has now been reported from Beijing that Apple is facing a "difficult and long process" before the local Apple Intelligence launch. The only way out, according to a top official who wished to remain unnamed, is to "partner with local groups". In fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook was only recently back in China and met with the Chinese Prime Minister together with other business people from abroad. It is not known whether Apple Intelligence was an issue here.
Own LLM from China for Apple Intelligence?
The responsible "Cyberspace Administration of China" is currently preparing an approval process for foreign large language models (LLM). This will "take a long time" and be "complex". The official encouraged people to contact Chinese LLM providers whose language model has already been reviewed. The prospect of a "simple and direct approval process" was held out.
For Apple, this means a situation between a rock and a hard place: the company might also have to hand over trade secrets and would not be able to keep its data protection promises. At Apple Intelligence, these combine local models on iPhone, iPad or Mac (using Apple Silicon, at least 8 GB of RAM and Neural Engine) with a secure server connection called Private Cloud Compute (PCC). The PCC system is set up in such a way that calculations can be carried out without Apple knowing the details. In China, Apple would probably have to use alternative LLMs from competitors –, such as Erniebot from Baidu. The PCC system would then possibly fall flat. However, the iPhone company in China is certainly prepared to go its own way. For example, it works with government-owned companies for iCloud.
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