The highly-watched Apple "Chinese AI Band" finally fell in Alibaba.

According to the latest report of The Information, Apple has recently cooperated with Alibaba Group to launch Apple's "Apple Intelligence" in China. The report pointed out that the two parties have submitted their joint development of related artificial intelligence functions to Approval by China's cyberspace regulatory agencies.

The current relevant policies and regulations on the filing and approval of AI products in China include the "Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services", "Regulations on the Recommendation Management of Internet Information Service Algorithm", "Regulations on the In-depth Synthesis Management of Internet Information Services", etc. A person familiar with the filing and approval of big models told the "Silicon-based Research Office" that before AI products and services are launched, enterprises mainly need to register algorithms and pass security assessments. From the perspective of the approval process, they need to go through the local preliminary review and the central government. Final trial.

If according to this progress, the cooperation between Apple and Alibaba has achieved key implementation. According to Cook's previous call, "AI is expected to be launched in China in April this year", which also means that The timetable for AI iPhones equipped with domestic AI models to enter the market is promising.

It seems to be some kind of coincidence.

Before the news came out, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who had always been low-key, suddenly "flashed" in Alibaba's Hangzhou Park. Turning the time forward, his most critical judgment on Alibaba and future business changes is "AI" - "AI will change everything, but this does not mean that AI can determine everything. Technology is important, but the future really determines the outcome. , or what we have done for this upcoming era is truly valuable and unique," said Jack Ma.

Apple chose Alibaba because it was not accidental.

In fact, since 2023, Apple has begun to test different domestic models. There are no less than 7 companies that have reported "marriage" with Apple, including major manufacturers such as Baidu and ByteDance, as well as Baichuan. Big model startups such as Intelligence, Dark Side of the Moon and Deepseek, but nothing happened. Before the news came out, an industry insider mentioned that there were not many options left for Apple.

Ali and Apple are not the so-called "intercepting the bullshit" - in the competition for China's big models, Alibaba has almost never missed every key node with the logic of "cloud + model + application". , whether it is the underlying model capabilities, open source ecological construction or foreign investment.

The cooperation between Apple and Alibaba is not surprising.

According to The Information, Apple chose Baidu as its main partner last year, but since Baidu's development model for "Apple Intelligence" has not reached Apple's standards, the cooperation has challenged, and Apple is also considering After DeepSeek, he eventually gave up his cooperation with the DeepSeek team.

Understand why Apple chose "Alibaba is not surprised, so we must first understand the so-called "what is Apple's standard".

First of all, it is the underlying model capability. When evaluating multiple domestic AI models, Apple's goal is to find a big model that better understands the intention of Apple's end-side devices. The big model can give targeted and personalized answers based on the user's iPhone usage and provide customized services , This poses greater challenges to the development and engineering capabilities of domestic model manufacturers (such as building high-quality data sets).

For Alibaba, facing the C-end, on the one hand, it is familiar with users' shopping and payment habits and has richer data; on the other hand, among the domestic big models, the basic model of Alibaba Tongyi big models Ability has also attracted attention.

Secondly, the response speed and experience of serving large customers are also the advantages of large companies and the disadvantage of startups like DeepSeek.

Furthermore, the good reputation and brand impression for users and developers is due to Alibaba Cloud's insistence on open source and the group's "return to user value."

Lastly, there is also an understanding of the ecosystem, which may be why Apple has not joined hands with Tencent. The two closed ecosystems are destined to face more games. In contrast, the relationship between Apple and Alibaba is much more "simple and friendly".

Model capabilities, advantages of large manufacturers, good reputation and ecological understanding, Alibaba is Apple's best choice.

From the impact of the cooperation, Alibaba is undoubtedly the one who benefits the most. After announcing the cooperation, Alibaba's US stock price rose accordingly.

For Alibaba, there are three opportunities to "marriage" with Apple: one is to endorse its technology and brand, and the other is to cooperate with its Alibaba Cloud to promote the increase of cloud computing market share. The third is the entry value. Using Apple’s hardware entrances and scenarios, further optimize model performance is expected to derive a new business model.

For Apple, coping with domestic mobile phone brands such as Huawei and cooperating with Alibaba is also a more intense localization war. Using AI phones that are not castrated is greatly relieved of the pressure on its Chinese market. .

We mentioned in "The Year of the Snake" that the first task that Apple and Cook need to clarify is to defend the Chinese market.

According to data released by the agency Canalys, in the mainland Chinese market, in the past year, vivo ranked first with a share of 17%, with Huawei following and Apple Only ranked third, Cook wants to see its use of the localized "Apple Intelligence" to leverage the Chinese market.

With the entry of "Apple + Alibaba", domestic AI mobile phones are expected to usher in a new round of "camp war" in 2025. Samsung previously announced that the latest mobile phone Galaxy S25 will be available for Zhipu AI Agentic GLM model capabilities, Xiaomi has previously reached a cooperation with ByteDance Bao, etc.

Although the cooperation between Apple and Alibaba seems to be a perfect match, the deep integration of the two major ecologyThere may also be many challenges in cooperating.

For example, Apple's requirements for AI on the opposite end are extremely strict. According to Alibaba Cloud's March 2024 technical white paper, Tongyi Qianwen compressed the parameter volume from 7B to 2.2B (reduced by 68%) through structured pruning. However, according to Geek Park's actual measurement data, its FP16 accuracy model occupies 2.1GB of memory on the iPhone 15 Pro. The Heart of the Machine Test shows that the first round of reasoning delay is 0.62 seconds, which is still higher than the Apple Core ML recommended standard (≤1.5GB/≤0.4 Second).

For example, how to balance the respective ecology of Alibaba and Apple. When you want to turn on the lights in voice, Tmall Elf and Siri may also "take work" - for example, if you shout "Open the living room light", your phone will decide within half a second whether to listen to Tmall Elf or Siri , This secret battle of "whoever reacts quickly will listen to whoever responds quickly" can also be seen as a technological race between the two companies for control of smart homes in the future.

Time goes back to 2014. When talking about the first meeting with Cook, Jack Ma commented on Cook: "I have a good impression and I think Cook is not worthy." He talked about his time with Apple at that time During the cooperation, Jack Ma said: "We must find ways to cooperate more and compete less. If two elephants fight, they will definitely affect other animals around us."

Ten years later, in the ever-changing AI world, the value of this sentence is still rising.