The deployment of Apple Intelligence continues to be slow and gradual, but little by little the Cupertino company is advancing (with setbacks) in its plans to offer this type of services around the world. You’ve run into a stumbling block in China… or maybe not.
No ChatGPT. OpenAI’s chatbot and AI models are not available in China. In this country, regulatory bodies require that generative AI services obtain government approval before they can be used by users, which has forced Apple to look for alternatives.
If I can’t use the ones here, I’ll try to use the ones there. According to Reuters, faced with this dilemma, Apple is holding talks with two large Chinese technology companies that, precisely, have their own chatbots. These are Tencent and ByteDance, although according to sources close to the process, this negotiation is still in the preliminary phase.
A great opportunity for Apple. In recent times, Apple’s market share in the Chinese market has been declining, but an agreement with one of these two companies could revive those sales. Apple’s AI platform has two main legs: the first, its own services, available both locally and in its private cloud, and partner services such as OpenAI, to which users can have access if they believe that Apple Intelligence for alone is not enough. In China, users could therefore have access to chatbots developed by Tencent or ByteDance instead of ChatGPT if they need it.
China is tightening its grip on AI models. China has had to overcome significant obstacles to develop its AI technology. There is a veto for access to advanced AI chips from companies like NVIDIA, but even so, companies in this country have managed to develop LLM and chatbots that seem to compete head-to-head with ChatGPT or Gemini, for example. ByteDance has Doubao, Tencent has Hunyuan and Baidu has Ernie.
They already tried it with Baidu. These negotiations take place after the previous attempt by Apple, which spoke with Baidu to integrate its chatbot in China instead of OpenAI. According to The Information, these talks failed. On the one hand, due to technical problems when executing that integration. On the other hand, due to the potential use of interaction data with the iPhone to train AI models.
Without AI, Apple is at a disadvantage. The truth is that Apple has a problem in this regard, because its competitors in China are beginning to offer this type of integration with local chatbots. Their iPhones have also encountered tough competition with models from Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei, which has reemerged strongly and has now just presented its promising Huawei Mate 70.
The US government can act. As indicated on TechRadar, although ChatGPT is not available in China directly, there is a way to use it there through Microsoft and its Azure platform. However, The Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago that the US government is considering activating new regulations. This would further block the sale of AI technology to China.
Danger for Apple. Their trade war is intensifying with these types of measures, often with the argument of concern for national security. In any case, the US has not taken measures of this type but doing so would be a serious blow to Apple’s aspirations, which would not be able to fully compete in the field of AI in China.
Image | OpenAI | Alejandro Luengo
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