AIBRIEF
Apple trained a China only large language model with Alibaba's engineering support and registered it with the country's internet regulator, a regulatory first for a foreign firm.
Apple has trained a large language model built specifically for mainland China, with Alibaba's engineering support, and has cleared the country's internet regulator to put it on iPhones, iPads, Macs and Vision Pros in the coming months. Three people familiar with the matter, who declined to be named because the details are sensitive, said the work has not been previously reported. If the model ships as planned, Apple would be the first foreign company approved by Beijing to offer a proprietary AI model in China, according to Business Times.
Apple and Alibaba declined to comment.
Apple's prior plan was to lean on local partners' models to bring generative AI features to its Chinese devices, since US services such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude are unavailable there. The new training run keeps that partner stack but adds an Apple-trained model underneath, giving the company control of the on-device layer rather than renting it from a partner.
The development comes as Apple tries to claw back handset share lost to Huawei, which already ships AI-equipped phones in China. It also gives Beijing a working template for the next foreign entrant: an in-house model, a Chinese engineering partner, and regulator signoff before launch.