Apple is in talks with ByteDance, the owner of Tencent and TikTok, about integrating its artificial intelligence models into iPhones sold in China, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
The US company began rolling out OpenAI’s ChatGPT to its devices this month, part of its Apple Intelligence product that allows the Siri voice assistant to tap into the chatbot’s expertise, including for user queries. users about photos and documents, such as presentations.
ChatGPT is not available in China, and the country’s legal requirements require synthetic AI services to be approved by the government before being released to the public, forcing Apple to seek local partners for these services. its AI features at a time when its market share in the country is falling.
Apple’s discussions with Tencent and ByteDance about using their AI models are in the very early stages, anonymous sources said.
ByteDance declined to comment, while Apple and Tencent did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A successful partner for Apple’s AI services in China could be a big winner in the country’s increasingly crowded AI field, where dozens of major language models have been adopted by tech companies. large as well as startups offer.
They include ByteDance’s Doubao, Tencent’s Hunyuan and search engine giant Baidu’s Ernie.
MARKET SHARE IN CHINA
Apple and Baidu were reportedly in talks about using Baidu’s AI model in China, but The Information this month said the discussions had been hampered by technical issues, including a dispute over using iPhone user data to train AI models.
Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Baidu’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell after the Reuters report, falling 4.2% compared with a 0.6% drop in the Hang Seng index. . Tencent shares rose 2.3%.
The lack of AI capabilities in the latest iPhones sold in China has become a major setback for Apple, as it faces a decline in market share in the world’s largest smartphone market. due to increasing competition from domestic brands including Huawei.
Huawei, which returned to the premium market in August with a phone using a Chinese-made chip, launched the Mate 70 series last month with AI capabilities powered by language modeling. large company monopoly.
Apple briefly fell out of the top 5 Chinese smartphone vendors in the second quarter before recovering in the third quarter. According to research firm IDC, the US company’s smartphone sales in China China still fell 0.3% in the third quarter from a year earlier, while Huawei’s sales rose 42%.
