Apple is in dire need of offering Apple Intelligence features in China. iPhone sales are in the socks, with consumers favoring not only local brands, but also those that offer smartphones that integrate AI. While Apple Intelligence has been available since last October, it is only in a handful of countries, and China is not one of them (nor is Europe, but that will change in April).
Apple Intelligence with a layer of censorship
For China, Apple faces an additional difficulty: the manufacturer must work with a local partner to satisfy the requirements of the authorities. This is why the apple company has started looking for an ally capable of providing it with an AI above all suspicion, understand: an AI that respects the fierce censorship exercised by Beijing. After a few failed approaches, Apple has set its sights on Alibaba and Baidu, according to Bloomberg.
Baidu will be in charge of some features, such as Visual Intelligence, the equivalent of Google Lens. But Alibaba will be in charge of the most important one: a censorship management overlay. With Apple’s help, the Chinese giant has created an in-device system that can analyze and modify Apple’s AI models to censor and filter the results generated by Apple Intelligence.
The Chinese government will be able to ask Alibaba to require Apple to make changes to Apple Intelligence’s AI models. The overlay will be updated very regularly, and Apple will simply disable the AI features on devices that use outdated models. To get those features back, the data will have to be updated to remove the banned content.
Foreign visitors to China will not have to deal with this censorship on their iPhones; This new system will only be integrated on smartphones sold in China. Now that the technological Meccano is in place, Apple wants to move very quickly to activate its AI features: there is talk of activation as early as May.
Source: Bloomberg
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