Apple Reportedly 'Passed Over' DeepSeek as Apple Intelligence Partner

Apple in recent months "passed over" the Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, according to The Information.

Apple Intelligence iPhone 16
DeepSeek has garnered significant media attention over the past few weeks, as it developed an artificial intelligence model at a lower cost and with reduced power consumption compared to competitors. However, the U.S. and some other countries have moved to ban DeepSeek on government devices due to privacy concerns.

Apple is required to work with a local Chinese company to develop artificial intelligence models for devices sold in China. The report said Apple had targeted Baidu as its partner last year, but Apple eventually decided that Baidu did not meet its standards, leading it to assess models from other companies in recent months.

The report said Apple has assessed models developed by Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance, and it appears to be moving forward on a partnership with Alibaba at this time. Apple and Alibaba have submitted a first set of artificial intelligence features that they co-developed to China's cyberspace regulator for approval, the report said.

Apple Intelligence will gain support for additional languages this year, including Chinese, according to Apple. The next set of new languages are coming in an April software update. However, this Chinese language support might be limited to countries outside of China until if and when Apple Intelligence is approved to launch there.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Popular Stories

Aston Martin CarPlay Ultra Screen

Apple's CarPlay Ultra to Expand to These Vehicle Brands Later This Year

Sunday February 1, 2026 10:08 am PST by
Last year, Apple launched CarPlay Ultra, the long-awaited next-generation version of its CarPlay software system for vehicles. Nearly nine months later, CarPlay Ultra is still limited to Aston Martin's latest luxury vehicles, but that should change fairly soon. In May 2025, Apple said many other vehicle brands planned to offer CarPlay Ultra, including Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. In his Powe...
Apple Logo Black

Apple Just Made Its Second-Biggest Acquisition Ever After Beats

Thursday January 29, 2026 10:07 am PST by
Apple today confirmed to Reuters that it has acquired Q.ai, an Israeli startup that is working on artificial intelligence technology for audio. Apple paid close to $2 billion for Q.ai, according to sources cited by the Financial Times. That would make this Apple's second-biggest acquisition ever, after it paid $3 billion for the popular headphone and audio brand Beats in 2014. Q.ai has...
Apple Logo Black

Apple's Next Launch is 'Imminent'

Sunday February 1, 2026 12:31 pm PST by
The calendar has turned to February, and a new report indicates that Apple's next product launch is "imminent," in the form of new MacBook Pro models. "All signs point to an imminent launch of next-generation MacBook Pros that retain the current form factor but deliver faster chips," Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said on Sunday. "I'm told the new models — code-named J714 and J716 — are slated...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

Apple Changes How You Order a Mac

Saturday January 31, 2026 10:51 am PST by
Apple recently updated its online store with a new ordering process for Macs, including the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro. There used to be a handful of standard configurations available for each Mac, but now you must configure a Mac entirely from scratch on a feature-by-feature basis. In other words, ordering a new Mac now works much like ordering an...
Apple MacBook Pro M4 hero

New MacBook Pros Reportedly Launching Alongside macOS 26.3

Sunday February 1, 2026 5:42 am PST by
Apple is planning to launch new MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips alongside macOS 26.3, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. "Apple's faster MacBook Pros are planned for the macOS 26.3 release cycle," wrote Gurman, in his Power On newsletter today. "I'm told the new models — code-named J714 and J716 — are slated for the macOS 26.3 software cycle, which runs from...

Top Rated Comments

WarmWinterHat Avatar
13 months ago

AI saves me hours and hours each week these days. Some wins are bigger than others, and there are some misses, but the boost in productivity even from current gen AI is huge, for me.
I'm not allowed to use it for work, at all. My company has all AI providers blocked at the firewall, and we get disciplined if were caught using it without specific authorization. Too big of a chance of PPI leaks and errors from using data that didn't come directly from the source.

Clinical pharmacy.


Even Encyclopedia Britannica had errors and needed to be updated, so if you want to play ostrich to the revolution going around you because you're a luddite - more power to you.
Gladly! Just like you never use an encyclopedia for research, Britannica or otherwise, I won't use an LLM. I just go to the source, and skip the wasteful middleman.

Some AI is useful, in some fields. LLMs suck.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
orbital~debris Avatar
13 months ago
Sounds like Apple made a sensible assessment that lines up with the shady practices purportedly employed by DeepSeek in service of rivalling established AI players.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
brofkand Avatar
13 months ago

All AI solutions are a dumpster fire. Some are just burning dumpsters full of creosote and some are burning dumpsters full of cat crap.
None of them are truly intelligent - that is plainly obvious to people who use them. But there are absolutely levels of usefulness, and right now Apple Intelligence is firmly at the bottom of that pile.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WarmWinterHat Avatar
13 months ago
Why just not let the end-user decide what, if any, outside AI service their phone connects to? It could easily be an API.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sw1tcher Avatar
13 months ago

The report said Apple has assessed models developed by Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance, and it appears to be moving forward on a partnership with Alibaba at this time.
In China, AI will stand for Alibaba Intelligence, not Apple Intelligence
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
hagar Avatar
13 months ago

All AI solutions are a dumpster fire. Some are just burning dumpsters full of creosote and some are burning dumpsters full of cat crap.
They are quite amazing if you know how to use them.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)