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Lanon Wee

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, Unexpectedly Visits China

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, made a shock visit to China. He was in a cheerful mood while meeting gamers in Chengdu, yet analysts believe that the company is experiencing a decline in iPhone demand in China. This is his second visit to China this year - previously in March, he commented that Apple has a "mutually beneficial" relationship with China, which is a major center of production. Nevertheless, the company's activities in the nation have been made difficult due to Covid-19 and the increasing US-China discord. During Mr Cook's visit, he took a tour of Apple's Taikoo Li store and had the opportunity to meet with young players of Tencent's Honour of Kings online battle game. He declared on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform, that the energy tonight was exceptionally high. Honour of Kings, which began in Chengdu, has become "a global phenomenon on the App Store", he told the state-run China Daily newspaper. He hoped that Chinese developers would be able to re-create this triumph with software specifically designed for Apple's Vision Pro augmented reality headset, which would also be produced by a Chinese manufacturer, as per the report. This year marks the start of Apple's thirtieth year in the country. Mr Cook, who has been Apple's CEO since 2011, is seen as the designer of the company's adoption of Chinese manufacturing, however in recent years there have been periods of both highs and lows in the connection. The effects of Covid-19 have caused a decrease in output in China, along with geopolitical disagreements between China and America leading to supply chain issues. As a result, the company has made attempts to boost production amounts in India. Analysts quoted by Bloomberg have claimed that the sales of Apple's most recent iPhone have been below expectations. They have attributed this to the decrease in demand in China and the stiffer competition from various competitors. Strict export regulations imposed by the United States on cutting edge technology have complicated the attempts of Chinese corporations, like Huawei, to produce devices that are capable of competing with the iPhone. The August release of Huawei's Mate 60 Pro phone, featuring advanced Chinese-made chips, was greeted with extraordinary demand, signaling that competitors were gaining ground. The timing of Mr Cook's arrival is in keeping with news of Chinese technical progress. On Tuesday, Chinese tech corporation Baidu announced the launch of the newest edition of their Ernie AI model. Ernie 4.0 proclaimed itself to be as powerful as OpenAI's GPT-4 system. At a presentation headed by Baidu CEO Robin Li, there was a demonstration of AI being used to compose a martial arts novel, in addition to constructing commercial adverts and videos. At present, Chinese AI engineers have numerous home-made big language models at their disposal, yet they confront stringent regulations. When the BBC tested out a previous iteration of Ernie the bot, questions related to delicate issues like the 4th of June 1989 Tiananmen Square operations and the name of a jailed ex-high-ranking Communist Party figure, Bo Xilai, were evaded with the answer: "Let's talk about something different."

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