Tim Cook is currently in China for some official events. Ahead of a Shanghai developer conference, the top Apple executive called the DeepSeek models “excellent,” as the company continues to suffer from its Apple Intelligence fiasco.
According to the South China Morning Post, Tim Cook praised the DeepSeek model on the sidelines of the China Development Forum in Beijing. This comment comes a few days before Apple is expected to unveil details about Apple Intelligence for Chinese developers.
As previously reported by Bloomberg, the company has partnered with Alibaba to bring Apple Intelligence to the country. As mentioned by the publication, several teams in China and the US are working to adapt the Apple Intelligence platform for the region. With a launch date expected as soon as May, this means a proper update will come a little after Apple starts offering Chinese support for its AI features with iOS 18.4.
Bloomberg also explained that Alibaba will “censor and filter AI output to comply with requirements from the Chinese government.” Additionally, Baidu will handle other AI features, such as Visual Intelligence and searches. While previous reports said Baidu wouldn’t be involved with Apple Intelligence, the publication says the Chinese company will also have a role in this launch.
While DeepSeek won’t be part of the initial Apple Intelligence launch in the country, Apple has already teased that it’s open to working with third-party LLMs as it’s currently doing with its ChatGPT integration. So far, some codes hint at Google Gemini integration coming in the near future. However, reports suggest that Apple and Google haven’t reached an agreement yet.
Early this year, American AI companies were caught by surprise by DeepSeek, which started offering a breakthrough reasoning model that was cheaper to make and use than ChatGPT, Gemini, and other LLMs that have ridiculously expensive structures.
After causing some panic among GPU makers and AI companies, OpenAI and other firms revamped their plans to introduce new features to their LLM models faster while also making them cheaper.
While BGR doesn’t believe Tim Cook will announce a partnership with DeepSeek that soon, it’s possible that we might see it in the coming year.
