Dongxing Securities released a research report saying that from the perspective of the computer industry, the current explosive model is frequent, and the rapid technological update and product iteration make the final pattern of the industry still uncertain, but the launch of DeepSeek and Apple (AAPL. US) and Ali (09988) cooperation reflects that the local large model technology has gradually gained international recognition, has the strength to participate in international competition, has launched in-depth cooperation with Tongyi Qianwen Beyondsoft (002649.SZ), TransInfo Technology (002373.SZ), Zhongke Jincai (002657.SZ) and other companies are expected to benefit from the development of the industry, while the demand for Alibaba Cloud expansion is expected to drive the development of the domestic computing power chain, Sugon (603019.SH), Haiguang Information ( 688041.SH), Cambrian (688256.SH), Inspur Information (000977.SZ) and other companies are expected to benefit.

The main views of Dongxing Securities are as follows:

Events:

1. According to the Financial Associated Press, citing The Information, Apple and Alibaba will cooperate to develop AI functions for Chinese iPhone users.

2. According to the information on Apple's developer website, Apple plans to hold a developer event on March 25, Beijing time, "In-depth exploration of Apple's intelligence and machine learning", at which the latest developments of Apple's intelligence and machine learning will be introduced. Comments:

Apple's sales in China are slowing down, and AI functions are urgently needed to break the situation. Referring to Canalys data, in 24Q4, driven by government subsidies and year-end promotions, Chinese mainland smartphone shipments reached 77.4 million units, a year-on-year increase of 5%, while Apple shipped 13.1 million mobile phones under the competition of domestic brands, a year-on-year decrease of 25%. Apple's CEO explained on the earnings call that the company's performance in the Chinese market is affected by multiple factors, and the fact that Apple Intelligence has not yet been launched in the Chinese market is one of the adverse effects. Apple now urgently needs to rebuild its competitiveness by localizing AI capabilities.

Alibaba Tongyi has advantages in technology, openness, ecology, infrastructure and services. We believe that among the many domestic models, Apple may choose to cooperate with Alibaba, mainly due to the comprehensive advantages of Ali Tongyi Qianwen. In terms of technology, Alibaba's Qwen series models cover a wide variety of task areas and sizes, which is enough to match Apple Intelligence's AI technology needs. The newly released flagship model Qwen2.5-Max surpasses Meta's Llama model and DeepSeek's V3 in terms of performance, and has been on the list of authoritative large models at home and abroad such as HuggingFace and OpenCompass several times. In the Hugging Face community, the number of derivative models developed by global developers based on Alibaba's self-developed open source models has exceeded 80,000, second only to the Llama series, and the top 10 open source models in OpenLLMLeaderboard are all derivative models developed based on Qwen. In terms of ecology, the total number of community models has exceeded 10,000, covering LLM, dialogue, voice, Wensheng graph, Tusheng video, AI composition and other fields, serving more than 8 million developers. In terms of infrastructure and services, Alibaba Cloud, as the largest cloud vendor in China, can provide support for Apple in terms of teamwork, resource allocation, and long-term maintenance. On the whole, Alibaba is more open in terms of model ecology than Baidu, Byte and other large manufacturers, and has more resources and experience than new forces such as DeepSeek and "AI Six Little Dragons", and the leadership of comprehensive capabilities may have contributed to this cooperation.

This cooperation is expected to bring a win-win situation for both Apple and Alibaba. For Apple, this cooperation is expected to help it stabilize its sales, and after domestic mobile phone manufacturers have successively launched AI functions, Apple is expected to improve its product functions, stimulate the demand for replacement phones through intelligence, and alleviate the decline in sales. For Alibaba, if it can be applied in Apple products, it is expected to greatly improve its C-end daily activity and user brand awareness, make up for the gap with C-end products such as DeepSeek, Doubao, and Kimi, and at the same time is expected to increase Alibaba Cloud's revenue scale and profitability.

Investment suggestion: From the perspective of the computer industry, the current explosive models are frequent, and the rapid technology update and product iteration make the final pattern of the industry still uncertain, but the launch of DeepSeek and the cooperation between Apple and Alibaba reflect that the local large model technology has gradually gained international recognition and has the strength to participate in international competition. At the same time, the demand for Alibaba Cloud expansion is expected to drive the development of domestic computing power chains, and companies such as Sugon, Haiguang Information, Cambrian, and Inspur Information are expected to benefit.

Risk warning: The development of the artificial intelligence industry is less than expected, the cooperation between Alibaba and Apple is less than expected, the development compliance of the artificial intelligence industry, and the market feedback of Apple Intelligence is less than expected.