摘要：Asked about his perspective on DeepSeek and whether the possible changes in cost could impact Apple’s margins, Cooks said DeepSeek

TMTPOST -- Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook indicated the iPhone maker would benefit from DeepSeek’s sudden surge as the Chinese startup boosts efficiency of the artificial intelligence (AI) development.

Credit：Apple CEO Tim Cook Weibo Account

Asked about his perspective on DeepSeek and whether the possible changes in cost could impact Apple’s margins, Cooks said DeepSeek is good for its AI models demonstrate innovations that drive efficiency. “In general, I think innovation that drives efficiency is a good thing. And, that's what you see in that model,” Cook said on an earnings call. “Our tight integration of silicon and software, I think, will continue to serve us very well.”

DeepSeek’s popular chatbot service application powered by its AI models jumped to the No.1 spot in app stores on January 26, dethroning OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app in U.S. on Apple’s App Store, and ha maintained its lead since then.

What stunned Silicon Valley is that it took just $5.58 million for DeepSeek to train its V3 large language model (LLM). The startup claimed it used 2,048 Nvidia H800 chips, a downgraded version of Nvidia’s H100 chips designed to comply with U.S. export restrictions. DeepSeek in January released open-source DeepSeek-R1, a reasoning models that it claims performance comparable to leading offerings like OpenAI’s o1 at a fraction of the cost. The model is up to 50 times cheaper to run than many U.S. AI models.

On the earnings conference, Cook highlighted Apple has taken a prudent approach to its spending and will continue to leverage a hybrid model. “From a CapEx point of view, we've always taken a very prudent and deliberate approach to our expenditure, and we continue to leverage a hybrid model, which I think continues to serve as well,” Cook told analysts.

The hybrid model for AI means Apple uses its own AI models on its device’s custom silicon chips to runs some simple tasks locally, meanwhile, more complicated tasks run in the cloud with the help of Apple’s AI model partners. The company now has only one AI partnership, with OpenAI, which allows ChatGPT to answer complex questions from iPhone users in a private cloud.

Apple Intelligence, Apple’s advanced personal artificial intelligence (AI) system that is deemed as a major selling point of the latest iPhone 16 series, is currently available in U.S. and six other countries for English version, and Apple said it will release a simplified Chinese version in April. But it’s still unclear when Apple Intelligence can be available for users in China for Apple has to obtain regulatory approval for launch of the AI software.

Cook told CNBC Apple is going through the regulatory process in China and “nothing is certain” until it gets through the process. He confirmed Apple is looking for local partners to offer AI services since OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other Western AI models aren’t available in China.

“There are a number of Chinese companies that do have licenses to operate locally,” Cook said. “What we have to do is choose one and work with them on the integration, just like OpenAI.”

来源：钛媒体