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Alibaba US-listed shares rise 4% premarket after confirming Qwen AI integration into Apple Intelligence
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Alibaba's U.S.-listed shares rose 4% in premarket trading on Wednesday after confirming that its Qwen AI model will be integrated into Apple Intelligence experiences in China. The integration covers iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS for users in China, allowing access to text and image understanding and generation without switching tools. The Cyberspace Administration of China included Apple's AI services on a list of approved providers alongside domestic companies like Huawei. This follows a long regulatory process since Apple's AI offering was first announced in 2024. The news comes amid intensifying US-China technological rivalry, with Alibaba recently banning employees from using Anthropic's AI and US lawmakers considering curbs on Chinese AI models. Separately, startup PrismML released compressed versions of Alibaba's open-source Qwen model, reducing it from 54 GB to under 4 GB to run on iPhone 15 or newer devices.
Source report
U.S.-listed shares in Chinese conglomerate Alibaba rose 4% in premarket trading on Wednesday after the company confirmed that its Qwen AI model will be integrated into Apple systems in China.
"Qwen will be integrated into Apple Intelligence experiences within iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS for users in China," an Alibaba spokesperson told CNBC.
The Cyberspace Administration of China included Apple AI services on a list of approved providers, which also featured products from domestic companies such as Huawei.
Alibaba's ADR shares were last seen trading 3.7% higher. Apple has been approached for comment.
Background and Regulatory Context
The approval follows a lengthy process for Apple's AI service to receive Beijing's greenlight, since the offering was first announced in 2024. During that period, the technological rivalry between the U.S. and China has intensified as both countries race for dominance in AI.
Earlier this month, Alibaba banned employees from using Anthropic's AI, while U.S. lawmakers are considering how to curb the growing adoption of Chinese AI models by domestic companies. U.S. tech giant Meta has reportedly been forced to dismantle its $2 billion acquisition of Chinese company Manus after Beijing ordered the deal to be unwound.
Capabilities of the Integration
The Apple-Qwen integration gives users the ability to access the model's capabilities, "like text and image understanding and generation, without needing to jump between tools," the Alibaba spokesperson added.
Related Developments
The announcement follows a CNBC report that Apple is in talks with a small Silicon Valley company that says it can shrink powerful artificial intelligence models enough to run directly on an iPhone, the startup's CEO told CNBC on Tuesday.
PrismML, a Khosla Ventures-backed spinout from the California Institute of Technology, publicly released compressed versions of Alibaba's open-source Qwen model on Tuesday. The company said it reduced the model from roughly 54 GB to less than 4 GB, allowing all 27 billion of its parameters to run on an iPhone 15 or newer.
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