Apple Boss Hails ‘Next Generation of Developers’ on China Visit 

Apple CEO Tim Cook attends the opening ceremony of the China Development Forum at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on March 23, 2025. (AFP)
Apple CEO Tim Cook attends the opening ceremony of the China Development Forum at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on March 23, 2025. (AFP)
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Apple Boss Hails ‘Next Generation of Developers’ on China Visit 

Apple CEO Tim Cook attends the opening ceremony of the China Development Forum at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on March 23, 2025. (AFP)
Apple CEO Tim Cook attends the opening ceremony of the China Development Forum at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on March 23, 2025. (AFP)

Apple boss Tim Cook on Wednesday praised "the next generation of developers" during a visit to a technology hub in eastern China, as the US tech giant battles to stay relevant in the country's vast consumer market.

The iPhone maker last year lost its status as the best-selling smartphone brand in China, but has sought to boost its ties to the country in recent months.

"Thrilled to meet the next generation of developers at Zhejiang University today," Cook said Wednesday in a post on Chinese social media platform Weibo that included a video of him interacting with students.

The post came as Apple announced it would donate 30 million yuan ($4.1 million) to the college to provide students with technical and business training in app development.

Based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang University is known for producing elite tech talent including Liang Wenfeng, the founder of AI startup DeepSeek.

The company stunned the world this year with a model chatbot that seemed able to match the performance of US rivals at a fraction of the cost.

Cook met China's commerce minister Wang Wentao on the sidelines of a key development forum in Beijing on Monday, with the ministry saying they "exchanged views on Apple's business development in China, China-US economic and trade ties and other topics".

In February, Chinese ecommerce titan Alibaba said it would supply AI technology to power Apple's iPhones in China.



Alibaba Launches Open-Source AI Coding Model, Touted as Its Most Advanced to Date 

A man walks past the Alibaba logo displayed at its booth during the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, China July 16, 2025. (Reuters)
A man walks past the Alibaba logo displayed at its booth during the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, China July 16, 2025. (Reuters)
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Alibaba Launches Open-Source AI Coding Model, Touted as Its Most Advanced to Date 

A man walks past the Alibaba logo displayed at its booth during the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, China July 16, 2025. (Reuters)
A man walks past the Alibaba logo displayed at its booth during the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, China July 16, 2025. (Reuters)

Alibaba Group announced on Wednesday the launch of Qwen3-Coder, an open-source artificial intelligence model for software development that the Chinese e-commerce giant described as its most advanced coding tool to date.

The launch comes amid intensifying competition among Chinese technology companies in the global AI development race, with firms on both sides of the Pacific releasing increasingly sophisticated models. Qwen3-Coder is designed for software development tasks such as code generation and managing complex coding workflows, Alibaba said in a statement.

The company positioned the model as particularly strong in "agentic AI coding tasks" - automated processes where AI systems can work independently on programming challenges.

According to performance data released by Alibaba, Qwen3-Coder outperformed domestic competitors, including models from DeepSeek and Moonshot AI's K2 in key coding capabilities.

The company also claimed its model matched the performance of leading US models, including Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT-4 in certain areas.