Apple taking help of Huawei allies to step in Chinese AI industry

Apple is trying its best to gain a foothold in the Chinese AI industry against Huawei. In a recent move, the iPhone maker joined hands with some China-based companies. Interestingly, these firms are significant allies of the Mate developer.

iPhones are doing well in the global market. But when it comes to China, the devices are constantly seeing a major downfall. Chinese customers prohibited Apple products not only to support native firms but also due to a lack of significant AI services.

The American tech giant introduced the iPhone 16 series in China last year. It comes with interesting features and a new software upgrade. But something that users were highly expecting from Apple was AI features in its phones.

The OEM didn’t release Apple Intelligence for its iPhone 16 rather said that it will debut in 2025. The announcement was enough to shift the consumers’ attention to other “better” alternatives like Huawei Mate XT tri-fold, Nova 13, and Mate 70.

Inputs reveal that Apple skipped the AI features for iPhone 16 as it didn’t have an AI partner that could meet the Chinese regulations. But it’s 2025 and the company is making efforts to bring AI to its devices in China.

Earlier, Apple rumored to be using Huawei-powered DeepSeek R1 for its future iPhones and entering the Chinese AI industry. But later, the company skipped the plan and shook hands with Huawei’s allies, Alibaba and Baidu.

Alibaba has confirmed that Apple is taking the help of Chinese partners to bring AI iPhones to China. Alibaba will assist the Apple on-device models to censor the content while Baidu will look after the visual intelligence.

Both partners will eventually help Apple meet the Chinese regulations and comply with the country’s AI standards.

Huawei is reshaping its AI world with new features and is ready to unlock more upgrades with the Pura 80 series. Meanwhile, Apple is said to bring AI-powered iPhones by mid-2025. Thus, we can expect an AI showdown by the middle of this year.

Apple taking help of Huawei allies to step in Chinese AI industry (Image Credits: Apple/X)