Apple’s rollout of Apple Intelligence services powered by state-sanctioned Alibaba in China is being held up by a Chinese Communist party (CCP) regulator.
Zijing Wu, Cheng Leng, and Michael Acton for Financial Times:
The tech giants have been working together to launch Apple Intelligence, the iPhone-maker’s suite of AI services, for Chinese users. The system would be supported by Alibaba’s latest models.
Multiple AI products co-developed by the tech companies have been submitted this year to China’s internet authority for approval.
But their applications are stalled at the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), two people familiar with the matter said, citing increasing geopolitical uncertainties between China and the US.
Apple has suffered in particular from growing tensions between Washington and Beijing… Apple’s stock price has also been hit this year over its slow global rollout of AI features, which the company has touted as a key selling point for its latest iPhone models, as well as regulatory and legal action that threatens its high-margin services business…
Beijing has also been seeking leverage in trade talks by reviving investigations into US tech giants such as Nvidia and Google… Final approval needs to be cleared by the higher body of the State Council, which is also engaged in US-China trade negotiations.
MacDailyNews Take: It’ll likely be quickly approved once there’s a U.S.-China trade deal and the CCP no longer needs it for leverage, however weak said leverage may be, especially considering that Apple, via its extensive supply chain, indirectly supports a significant number of jobs, with estimates suggesting over 5 million jobs in China are tied to its operations, primarily through suppliers like Foxconn, which employs around 1.2 million workers. For comparison, China’s largest employers, such as state-owned enterprises like China National Petroleum Corporation or State Grid, directly employ hundreds of thousands, with State Grid reporting over 900,000 employees. Anytime China hurts Apple, it hurts itself.
Regardless, as we wrote last November, “Apple Intelligence in China will be highly censored and rather limited; it will only spit back the approved narratives of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Apple Intelligence users in China: “What happened in Tiananmen Square on June 3-4, 1989?”
Apple Intelligence in China: “On, nothing much. It was an ordinary time and the weather was unremarkable.”
Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. — Potter Stewart
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
