Apple boss Tim Cook made a surprise visit to China
Tim Cook (center) is surrounded during a visit to the Apple store in Chengdu, China
Apple CEO Tim Cook made a surprise visit to China. Analysts said that although he was in an upbeat mood when meeting with gamers in the city of Chengdu, the company faces falling domestic iPhone demand. This is his second trip to China this year. In March, he said Apple has a "symbiotic" relationship with China, an important manufacturing base. But the company's operations in the country are complicated by Covid and tensions between the US and China. Cook's visit included a visit to Apple's Taikoo Li store to meet young players of Tencent's online fighting game Honor of Kings. “The energy tonight was out of this world!” he wrote on Chinese social media platform Weibo.
Honor of Kings started in Chengdu but has now become a "global phenomenon on the App Store", he told the official China Daily newspaper. He hopes Chinese developers can repeat that success with software for Apple's new Vision Pro augmented reality headset, which will also use a Chinese manufacturer, according to the report. This year marks Apple's third decade in the country. Mr. Cook, CEO since 2011, is considered the architect of Apple's embrace of manufacturing in China, but the relationship has had its ups and downs in recent years. Covid restrictions have hit manufacturing in China and geopolitical tensions with the US have added to supply chain concerns. Recently, the company has been looking to increase production in India. According to analysts polled by Bloomberg, its latest iPhone sales fell short of previous models. They blame falling demand in China and increasingly fierce competition from rivals.
America's strict export controls on advanced technology have made it difficult for Chinese companies like Huawei to produce models that can compete with the iPhone. However, the August launch of Huawei's sold-out Mate 60 Pro phone, with an advanced chip made in China, showed that its rivals are catching up. Mr. Cook's visit coincided with the announcement of other Chinese technological advances. Chinese tech giant Baidu revealed Tuesday that it has released the latest version of its Ernie AI model. He asserts that Ernie 4.0 is on par with OpenAI's GPT-4 system
At a launch event led by Robin Li, Baidu's chief executive, the AI was shown writing martial arts novels and creating posters and promotional videos.
China currently has several large domestically developed language models but AI developers face strict limitations.
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