Alibaba and Baidu shares jump in Hong Kong on Apple AI partnership

Shares of Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Baidu rose Thursday on their partnership with Apple for deploying their AI tools.

Hong-Kong listed shares of Alibaba rose 5% after the company confirmed that its Qwen AI model would be integrated into Apple services in China.

U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba had closed slightly higher overnight after an Alibaba spokesperson told CNBC that "Qwen will be integrated into Apple Intelligence experiences within iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and vision OS for users in China."

Baidu's Hong Kong-listed shares gained 4% as the company confirmed that it was working with Apple on Apple Intelligence features for iPhones in China.

This comes amid reports in late June that its artificial intelligence chip unit Kunlunxin is targeting an initial public offering in the city, which could value its affiliate at $50 billion.

The Cyberspace Administration of China in a notice on Wednesday included Apple Intelligence, along with six other smartphone-based AI services including Huawei Technologies, in a list of approved service providers.

The Apple-Qwen combination will allow users to access the model's capabilities, "like text and image understanding and generation, without needing to jump between tools," the Alibaba spokesperson added.

Apple did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comments.

The technological rivalry between China and the U.S. has intensified, as they race for AI dominance.

The U.S. has sought to curb China's ability to access high-end chips, while Beijing has tried to wall off U.S. investments into Chinese tech companies.

" AI leadership is becoming central to economic competitiveness, global standard-setting, and the maintenance of democratic governance," according to a report by research organization RAND.