Alibaba Group Chairman Joe Tsai confirmed on Thursday that the company was partnering with Apple to roll out AI for iPhones sold in China. He was speaking at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.

“[Apple]  talked to a number of companies in China, and in the end, they chose to do business with us. They want to use our AI to power their phones,” Tsai said. 

The partnership was first reported by tech-focused news organization The Information on Tuesday, triggering a jump in Alibaba and Apple shares. 

Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba surged on Thursday to hit their highest level since 2022 during the intraday session before paring the gains, last up 2.5%.

The announcement could provide clarity on Apple’s AI strategy in China, helping it better tackle growing competition as the iPhone’s market share erodes in the world’s largest smartphone market. 

While domestic rivals such as Huawei have touted AI features on their devices since last year, Apple has been quiet about its ‘Apple Intelligence‘ push in the market, despite plans to launch in the U.S. this fall.

Apple Intelligence is the Cupertino-based company’s plan to bring AI across its devices, featuring an improved version of its voice assistant Siri, as well as features that automatically organize emails and transcribe and summarize audio.

Analysts have told CNBC that Apple’s AI rollout in China has likely stalled due to China’s stringent rules on the technology. 

Beijing has enacted various regulations on AI in recent years with some of the rules requiring large language models to get approval for commercial use. Generative AI providers are also responsible for taking down “illegal” content.

However, Tsai said Thursday that the Alibaba partnership could offer Apple a local partner to help it navigate the regulatory environment and localize its AI.

Alibaba is among China’s technology giants that have built their own large language models and voice assistants.

— CNBC’s Anniek Bao contributed to this report.

Sony on Thursday raised revenue and profit forecasts for the full year after reporting a significant jump in gaming sales for the fiscal third quarter.

Here’s how Sony did in the December quarter compared with analyst estimates compiled by LSEG:

• Revenue: 4.41 trillion Japanese yen ($28.6 billion), versus 3.77 trillion yen expected. That was up 18% year-over-year and beat analyst expectations.
• Operating income: 469.3 billion yen, versus 404.21 billion yen expected. That’s up 1% year-on year and also topped analyst estimates.

Sony said it now expects sales for its fiscal full-year 2024 to hit 13.2 trillion yen, up 4% from its November forecast. The Japanese technology giant also raised its outlook for annual operating profit by 2% to 1.34 trillion yen.

The company noted that sales in its game and network services division totaled 237.9 billion yen in the fiscal third quarter, growing 16% year-over-year. This was bolstered by an increase in sales of both console and non-first-party game titles including add-on content.

Sony sold 9.5 million units of its PlayStation 5 console in the December quarter, up from 8.2 million in the same period a year ago.

The December quarter is a key period for Sony, covering the popular holiday shopping season which is often a lucrative time for consumer electronics firms.

In the previous quarter, Sony raised its sales guidance for the 2025 fiscal year, revising its forecast for revenue up slightly to 12.7 trillion yen from 12.6 trillion yen previously.

All eyes were on Sony’s gaming hardware business Thursday. In its fiscal second quarter, the firm said it sold 3.8 million units of its PlayStation 5 console, down 22% year-over-year.

Sony released the PlayStation 5 Pro last year, an upgraded version of its PS5 machine which has been out since November 2020.

Rival Nintendo reported weaker-than-expected results in its fiscal third quarter and slashed its forecast for the Switch console. The Japanese gaming giant last month teased a successor to the Switch dubbed Switch 2. It has yet to announce a price or release date but said more details will be revealed on April 2.

Google will start using artificial intelligence to determine whether users are age appropriate for its products, the company said Wednesday.

Google announced the new technique for determining users’ ages as part of a blog focused on “New digital protections for kids, teens and parents.” The automation will be used across Google products, including YouTube, a spokesperson confirmed. Google has billions of users across its properties and users designated as under the age of 18 have restrictions to some Google services.

“This year we’ll begin testing a machine learning-based age estimation model in the U.S.,” wrote Jenn Fitzpatrick, SVP of Google’s “Core” Technology team, in the blog post. The Core unit is responsible for building the technical foundation behind the company’s flagship products and for protecting users’ online safety. 

“This model helps us estimate whether a user is over or under 18 so that we can apply protections to help provide more age-appropriate experiences,” Fitzpatrick wrote.

The latest AI move also comes as lawmakers pressure online platforms to create more provisions around child safety. The company said it will bring its AI-based age estimations to more countries over time. Meta rolled out similar features that uses AI to determine that someone may be lying about their age in September.

Google, and others within the tech industry, have been ramping their reliance on AI for various tasks and products. Using AI for age-related content represents the latest AI front for Google.

The new initiative by Google’s “Core” team comes despite the company reorganization that unit last year, laying off hundreds of employees and moving some roles to India and Mexico, CNBC reported at the time. 

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