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Baidu has reportedly won a deal to power iPhones and other Apple devices in China using its generative artificial intelligence, according to national media outlet China Star Market. reported on Monday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. The alliance with Apple is a potentially important boost for the Chinese search engine giant’s vision of additional revenue generated by AI.
Because it is important: China’s regulations have forced Western tech companies to fully comply with the country’s rules if they want to attract the Chinese market, and that benefits Baidu, which performs many of the functions Google performs in the United States and Europe. Following the Beijing-based company’s rapid rise to prominence in the early 2000s, it appears poised to once again gain big advantage from restrictions on Google.
Details: Apple had already entered into talks with Alibaba and another unnamed Chinese AI company, according to the China Star Market report, before finally choosing Baidu as its partner for AI services for its upcoming iPhone 16.
- Buoyed by the news, Baidu’s Hong Kong-listed shares surged more than 6% before the lunch break on Monday, although these gains were erased by more than half by the market close.
- On Weibo, the Chinese microblogging platform Type X, opinion was divided regarding the integration of Baidu’s artificial intelligence technology into Apple devices. While some said the news meant their interest in buying a new iPhone was instantly lost, others claimed it showed how good Baidu’s technology is.
- Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TechNode.
- The Chinese launch of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series integrated Baidu’s Ernie AI chatbot to power its AI features such as content summaries and translations, but the collaboration has drawn scorn on social media. The device’s “Circle to Search” feature, which is supposed to provide detailed information about a certain part of an image or video that users hold down and circle, has been the subject of repeated complaints from users. In one viral example, a user of the Instagram-like social platform Xiaohongshu shared a video where they take a photo of a landscape and surround a reef in the center of the photo. AI powered by Baidu’s Ernie provides a purchase link from an e-commerce platform, while Samsung’s Hong Kong version, powered by Google, shows the exact location of the image.
Context: Beijing-based Baidu, considered China’s artificial intelligence leader, is among companies hoping to turn the much-hyped technology into a new revenue driver. Its CEO, Robin Li, has said that generative AI could add several billion yuan in incremental revenue to the company in 2024. In the fourth quarter, Baidu’s AI-related revenue amounted to RMB 656 million ( 91.0 million dollars).
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