Apple has not abandoned Baidu

Author | Zhou Zhiyu

Editor | Zhang Xiaoling

When Joseph Tsai, Chairman of Alibaba's Board of Directors, announced the AI collaboration with Apple at the Dubai summit, the outside world once thought Baidu had been eliminated. However, the plot quickly reversed—Apple had not abandoned Baidu.

On February 13, Wall Street Journal learned from informed sources that Apple is still collaborating with Baidu to develop the AI features for the Chinese version of the iPhone. Apple hopes to adopt a non-exclusive agreement to diversify risks.

Apple is known for its "closed ecosystem" and stringent technical standards. Its choice, to some extent, marks its recognition of domestic large model capabilities, which can enhance the brand value of its partners' large models.

As a result, in the past few days, news of Alibaba's collaboration with Apple has stirred market nerves. Baidu's stock price surged on February 13 and rose 2.88% before the market opened on February 14, with a market value exceeding RMB 246 billion.

Wall Street Journal learned that Apple plans to collaborate with multiple large model vendors, with Baidu responsible for developing image processing capabilities, which will be part of the "Apple Intelligence" (referred to as "Apple AI") features that Apple will launch in the Chinese market.

Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at market research firm Counterpoint Research, analyzed for Wall Street Journal that Apple may prefer a multi-supplier model in China, introducing more large model service providers. It is predicted that the Chinese-supporting Apple AI, the first version supporting non-English languages, will officially launch within 2025.

Apple's sense of urgency is strong. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 (October-December 2024), Apple's revenue in China fell by 11%. Apple CEO Tim Cook attributed part of the market share decline to the absence of Apple AI in the Chinese market. Meanwhile, brands like Huawei and Xiaomi are aggressively capturing users with their AI features.

To reverse the decline, Apple must make Siri more proficient in Chinese and make searches more relatable. This is precisely Baidu's strength: relying on years of accumulated Chinese corpus and search engine technology, it has localized advantages in language processing and image recognition.

Ethan Qi, Deputy Director of Counterpoint Research, believes that for Apple, this move is more about long-term planning; smartphone brands without AI features may face the risk of losing high-end users in the future.

The multi-supplier strategy also aligns with Apple's consistent demand for its supply chain. In overseas markets, Apple AI currently collaborates with OpenAI, but Apple is also considering introducing other large models, including Google's Gemini.

Apple's choice proves that Baidu remains an irreplaceable part of its AI landscape.

In Apple's overseas AI, there is a three-tier architecture consisting of locally running large language models, large language models on Apple servers, and third-party large models like ChatGPT. OpenAI is involved in the third tier.

In China, Apple's own large model is not yet on the filing and approval list. To quickly launch the AI features for the Chinese version of the iPhone this year, Apple needs to collaborate with local partners to complete the filing and approval of models across the aforementioned three-tier architecture This requires Apple to find an experienced partner among domestic large model manufacturers.

Baidu has the corresponding experience and service capabilities in both software and hardware. Mobile brands such as Samsung and Honor have collaborated with Baidu Smart Cloud on large models, integrating AI functionalities with Baidu's Wenxin large model capabilities. Specifically, this means opening interfaces in the underlying system, with Baidu providing a series of cloud-based large model services.

The user scale and call volume of Baidu Wenxin Yiyan rank among the top in the country. According to Baidu's data, as of last November, the user scale of Baidu Wenxin Yiyan was 430 million, with an average daily call volume of 1.5 billion times. From this perspective, the reliability of Wenxin Yiyan has already been validated through large-scale cooperative practices. It is believed that the relevant call volume data will further improve in next week's financial report.

This is a capability that DeepSeek currently lacks. Previously, informed sources indicated that Apple had tested the DeepSeek model but ultimately abandoned it due to the latter's insufficient experience in supporting large clients.

Moreover, although DeepSeek has recently gained attention, it has not yet grown into a "killer application" of the internet era, with hundreds of millions of daily active users and an average daily usage time of several hours.

Baidu's founder, Li Yanhong, admitted that there is still a long way to go before achieving such a killer application. The entire world is currently anxiously searching for such a super app.

There is no doubt that the AI wave triggered by DeepSeek has broken the gameplay in the large model field. Users will have higher demands for usage costs and architectural innovation when choosing large models; the technical route is also changing, prompting technology leaders like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to constantly reflect.

Baidu is accelerating its pace, firmly binding partners, including Apple, to itself.

On the cost side, the usage cost of large models is further decreasing. At a recent forum, Li Yanhong stated that the additional costs associated with large language models have significantly decreased and can be reduced by over 90% within 12 months. Previously, Sam Altman also pointed out that the cost of using artificial intelligence at a specific level decreases about tenfold every 12 months.

On February 13, Baidu announced that Wenxin Yiyan would be fully free starting from 0:00 on April 1, allowing all PC and APP users to experience the Wenxin series models. Coincidentally, Sam Altman also stated that GPT-4.5/5 will soon be released in succession, and the free version of ChatGPT will allow unlimited conversations using GPT-5 under standard intelligent settings.

Baidu's next-generation large model will also be accelerated for release. On February 14, Baidu announced that it would successively launch the Wenxin large model 4.5 series in the coming months and officially open source it starting June 30. Wall Street Insights learned that Baidu plans to release the next-generation artificial intelligence model Ernie 5.0 in the second half of this year, which will have significant enhancements in multimodal capabilities.

All of this indicates that the underlying large models will continue to iterate rapidly in the second half of the year. The current AI free battle is merely the prologue to the upcoming competition for rankings in the AI ecosystem industry From OpenAI to DeepSeek, disruptive innovations in the AI industry can emerge at any time, and the industry landscape has been continuously reshaped in just a few years. To remain leaders in the AI industry, Baidu and Alibaba cannot afford to be complacent