Recently, there have been reports that Alibaba will collaborate with Apple to develop new artificial intelligence features for iPhone users in the Chinese market. This move is seen as an important strategy for Apple to address declining sales in China, aiming to provide users with a more attractive software experience.
Insiders have revealed that Apple has been testing various AI models from well-known Chinese AI developers since 2023. After a series of evaluations, Apple formed a partnership with Baidu last year, becoming its primary AI technology supplier. However, with changes in the market environment, Apple has begun to reassess its options in recent months, evaluating AI models developed by Tencent, ByteDance, Alibaba, and Deepseek.
Notably, Alibaba Cloud's Tongyi Qianwen Qwen model has grown to become one of the largest open-source models globally. In the global open-source community, the number of derivative models from the Qwen series has exceeded 90,000, surpassing the Llama series from the American company Meta, demonstrating strong competitiveness. On January 28 of this year, Tongyi Qianwen officially open-sourced two new models—Qwen2.5-VL and Qwen2.5-1M—both achieving significant breakthroughs in visual understanding and long text processing. Following this, the flagship version, Qwen2.5-Max, was upgraded and released on January 29, showcasing exceptional overall performance.
According to a research report by Guosheng Securities, the release of domestic large models has begun to accelerate, with rapid technological advancements and a fast-growing market scale, which is expected to drive the widespread application of AI technology across various industries. Companies related to Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen are also actively positioning themselves. For instance, Boyan Technology has established a deep partnership with Alibaba Cloud, becoming an ecological partner for its database products; while Qianfang Technology is participating in Alibaba Cloud's "Qianwen Partner Program," exploring AI applications in the transportation sector.
This series of developments indicates that the collaboration between Alibaba and Apple is not only a technical integration but could also become an important catalyst for the development of China's artificial intelligence industry.
