Apple CEO Tim Cook Praises China's DeepSeek

[MacRumors]

Apple CEO Tim Cook has praised the artificial intelligence models developed by Chinese start-up DeepSeek, as the company moves closer to launching Apple Intelligence on the Chinese mainland pending regulatory approval, the South China Morning Post reports.

Speaking at the China Development Forum in Beijing, a state-organized annual event designed to attract global investment, Cook reportedly referred to DeepSeek's AI models as "excellent." He did not elaborate on whether Apple would pursue a partnership with the company. Cook previously commented during Apple's January earnings call that "innovation that drives efficiency is a good thing," in reference to AI companies like DeepSeek, which have been able to deliver impressive performance with lower cost and compute requirements.

DeepSeek has been praised for developing large language models that achieve comparable results to those from U.S. firms such as OpenAI, while requiring significantly fewer resources. The firm claims that its R1 model was developed in just two months with a total cost of $5.6 million.

In February, it was reported that Apple had reached an agreement with Alibaba Group to integrate the Chinese conglomerate's Qwen models into Apple Intelligence for mainland users. The company is also believed to be in talks with Baidu to serve as an additional provider of large language models for the Chinese market.

In addition to his comments on AI, Cook announced plans to expand Apple's cooperation with the China Development Research Foundation, alongside continued investments in clean energy development. Throughout his visit, Cook posted updates on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, showcasing a range of Apple products being used in classrooms, creative environments, and more.

Cook's comments mark a continuation of Apple's intensified focus on the Chinese market at a time when the company is facing declining iPhone shipments and heightened competition from domestic brands. Apple's smartphone shipments in China are believed to have fallen by 25% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2024, while annual shipments dropped 17% to 42.9 million units, placing Apple behind local competitors Vivo and Huawei.



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Article Link: Apple CEO Tim Cook Praises China's DeepSeek

 

[senttoschool]

Deepseek V3 is now the best non-reasoning model. It's also free and you can run it at 20 tokens/second on your Mac Studio M3 Ultra 512GB. Simply unthinkable a year ago that you could get a free model this advanced and run it locally this fast.

Here it is running on an M3 Ultra:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1904177084609827054

 

[Kottu]

"Att Apple, We value user privacy"... then goes to Chinese AI companies.

 

[senttoschool]

"Att Apple, We value user privacy"... then goes to Chinese AI companies.

Um, OpenAI integration on Apple devices uses your inputs to train their AI as well. Only Apple specific LLMs respect your privacy. Any 3rd party integration will not. Chinese or US or European.

 

[spartan1967]

Is it only me that thinks praising someone/something these days is a business decision than has to do with actual merit?

 

[JonathanParker]

Lol, must be rough seeing this as a Siri engineer

 

[ELman]

Deepseek V3 is now the best non-reasoning model. It's also free and you can run it at 20 tokens/second on your Mac Studio M3 Ultra 512GB. Simply unthinkable a year ago that you could get a free model this advanced and run it locally this fast.

View attachment 2495540

I have a hard time believing it's free. I personally don't want to give all my information to the Chinese government.

 

[SW3029]

Anything that takes power away from OpenAI is good by me

 

[StoneJack]

Chinese technology progress is very very impressive indeed and has no signs of slowing down even when economy is slowing down. On the contrary their innovations are accelerating and that’s difference with post bubble Japan which stopped innovating in 90s. Seems like Chinese learned well Japanese mistakes

 

[senttoschool]

I have a hard time believing it's free. I personally don't want to give all my information to the Chinese government.

Chinese government can't prosecute you. But the US government can/might if they get a hold of your data.

PS. Deepseek is open source. Host it locally and the data never leaves your computer. Perfect with an M3 Ultra.

 

[cocky jeremy]

I have a hard time believing it's free. I personally don't want to give all my information to the Chinese government.

Why? You already give it to the US government.

 

[CarAnalogy]

The stories about this seem to say he said only one word, in response to a direct question: "Excellent."

Not sure what else anyone expected him to say while in China on a trip specifically to butter up the Chinese.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Is it only me that thinks praising someone/something these days is a business decision than has to do with actual merit?

It’s a business decision but Deepseek is legitimately good. That nearly full-size versions of it can run well on Apple’s Mac Studio (with 512 GB RAM) is also impressive for both Apple and Deepseek: https://venturebeat.com/ai/deepseek...-mac-studio-and-thats-a-nightmare-for-openai/

That’s encouraging for Apple’s role in the future of AI.

 

[0049190]

I would never trust an AI model developed in China.

 

[Velin]

I would never trust an AI model developed in China.

90% of everything you buy is made in China. Including all your Apple gear. The products you communicate with, take photos with, store your most sensitive information on — all of it made in China.

Sit and think about that for a good, long while. Also look up “cognitive dissonance.”

 

[WarmWinterHat]

I would never trust an AI model developed in China.

It's completely open source. You can download it, look at every line and bit of code, and then decide for yourself. No need to trust.

 

[0049190]

90% of everything you buy is made in China. Including all your Apple gear. The products you communicate with, take photos with, store your most sensitive information on — all of it made in China.

Sit and think about that for a good, long while. Also look up “cognitive dissonance.”

Hopefully Chinese influence on world manufacturing will diminish significantly over the next few years as more companies move their operations to India and other countries. Given the choice I would gladly never buy another product made in China.

 

[W2u7Yw4HaD]

I have a hard time believing it's free. I personally don't want to give all my information to the Chinese government.

Entirely agree..! While the model could be run locally, most folks won't be doing that.. So I also don't want to be feeding the CCP any more info then we need. It worryingly already has too much of it..

 

[jamezr]

90% of everything you buy is made in China. Including all your Apple gear. The products you communicate with, take photos with, store your most sensitive information on — all of it made in China.

Sit and think about that for a good, long while. Also look up “cognitive dissonance.”

China's digital data sovereignty laws and regulations

This article will explore key China's data sovereignty compliance laws and demonstrate how InCountry can assist your company with these regulations.

incountry.com

DeepSeek coding has the capability to transfer users' data directly to the Chinese government

DeepSeek coding has the capability to transfer users' data directly to the Chinese government

abcnews.go.com

Can Chinese Firms Be Truly Private? - Big Data China

As China’s economy moved away from state planning and policymakers introduced market reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, many observers expected that in addition to promoting the growth of the Chinese economy, privatization would also have substantial political implications. Most importantly, it was...

bigdatachina.csis.org

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/05/01/china-data-propaganda-aspi-report/

If China Is Weaponizing Access to U.S. Data, We Need to See the Evidence

While it is important for national security to prevent foreign adversaries from leveraging U.S. data for geostrategic advantage, it is also critical for U.S. economic security and technology leadership not to undermine the critical role that data and data flows play in modern commerce.

itif.org

 

[supremedesigner]

Tim, that doesn't reflect well. I do not support DeepSeek. Endorsing DeepSeek puts Apple in a negative light. Ideally, we should remain neutral, not favoring DeepSeek over other AIs. Just wanted to share my thoughts.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Tim, that doesn't reflect well. I do not support DeepSeek. Endorsing DeepSeek puts Apple in a negative light. Ideally, we should remain neutral, not favoring DeepSeek over other AIs. Just wanted to share my thoughts.

They are already favoring openAI over the others by baking it into the OS. Just make an API and let whatever AI someone whats to use connectable via the end-user with an App.

..as for openAI, I would trust Kim Jong Un over Sam Altman.

 

[supremedesigner]

They are already favoring openAI over the others by baking it into the OS. Just make an API and let whatever AI someone whats to use connectable via the end-user with an App.

..as for openAI, I would trust Kim Jong Un over Sam Altman.

Same here. I would trust Elon Musk over Sam Altman for Grok. I like Grok a lot better.

 

[montuori]

That versions of it can run well on Apple’s Mac Studio (with 512 GB RAM) is also impressive for both Apple and Deepseek

The 1.5 model runs very well on a (relatively) tiny Studio M1 Max 64. The speed is impressive.

That said, the results (with this model anyway) are not great. Asked to generate a Prolog Fibonacci generator (a pretty typical "hello world" toy problem for naturally recursive languages) it spewed reasoning for a good while and popped out a Python program. The same prompt for Elixir was entirely wrong (the code was simply not valid but at least Elixir-ish) but did, at one point in the reasoning, come up with this which is admittedly pretty funny:

def fibs(n), do: fibs( :lazier_than_your_mom, n)
def fibs([a, b] = _laziest_list), do: [a] ++ fibs([b, a + b])

 

[AbSoluTc]

Wasn't this stories image used in another story unrelated?? Did they really pick this picture because the female was Asian???

 

[iObama]

Why? You already give it to the US government.

Up until 2 months ago, I'd say "yeah, that's way different." But... not so much anymore.