Apple CEO Tim Cook has visited China’s artificial intelligence hub of Hangzhou, the home of DeepSeek which was released earlier this year and shook some of the world’s biggest tech companies due to its AI capabilities developed at a fraction of the cost of its rivals.
In a post on his official Weibo account, Cook said that he met with “the next generation of developers” at the city’s Zhejiang University .
Apple donated 30 million yuan (A$6.57 million) to the university whose alumni includes DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng as well as Colin Huang of eTemu parent company PDD Holdings.
Apart from Deepseek, Hangzhou is also the home of Chinese tech giant Alibaba and hosts some of the country’s leading tech firms, dubbed the “Six Little Dragons,” which include AI startup Manycore Tech and humanoid robot maker Unitree Robotics, reported Bloomberg.
Apple’s AI platform, Apple Intelligence, which arrived in Australia late last year has still been locked out of China due to regulatory concerns.
During his current visit, Cook’s itinerary included a meeting in Beijing attended by Chinese Premier Li Qiang .
Apple’s AI plans are rolling out at a much slower pace than it anticipated. Cook has reportedly lost confidence in AI head John Giannandrea’s abilities on product development. Vision Pro creator Mike Rockwell has been brought in to help in that department. Rockwell will be in charge of Siri and will report to software chief Craig Federighi, removing Siri from Giannandrea’s command. For now, Giannandrea is expected to continue working at the company.
Apple too has acknlwedged some of the issues it is facing with Apple Intelligence and its integration with Siri. “We’ve been working on a more personalised Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features, and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year,” said the company.
It has even led to the company facing a lawsuit in the US. The lawsuit filed in the District Court in San Jose last week seeks class action status and unspecified financial damages on behalf of those who purchased AI-enabled iPhones and other iOS devices.
“Apple’s advertisements saturated the internet, television, and other airwaves to cultivate a clear and reasonable consumer expectation that these transformative features would be available upon the iPhone’s release,” the suit reads, referring to the iPhone 16 devices which were widely believed to usher in class-leading AI features.
“This drove unprecedented excitement in the market, even for Apple, as the company knew it would, and as part of Apple’s ongoing effort to convince consumers to upgrade at a premium price and to distinguish itself from competitors deemed to be winning the AI-arms race.”
“Contrary to Defendant’s claims of advanced AI capabilities, the Products offered a significantly limited or entirely absent version of Apple Intelligence, misleading consumers about its actual utility and performance. Worse yet, Defendant promoted its Products based on these overstated AI capabilities, leading consumers to believe they were purchasing a device with features that did not exist or were materially misrepresented.”
