Finance
Chinese smartphones tout AI ahead of Apple Intelligence launch
Chinese smartphone company Honor on Wednesday revealed new AI features. Pictured here is CEO George Zhao speaking in Shanghai on June 26, 2024.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Honor, a spinoff from Huawei that focuses on higher-end devices, revealed Wednesday the latest version of its Android-based Magic operating system would focus on AI as an assistant.
A company demo showed how even with a vague voice command — such as “I’m tired, order something” — the phone was able to automatically order coffee without requiring the user to touch the device. It used AI to mimic actions on a touchscreen. Human intervention was only needed to complete the payment.
The AI assistant could also identify documents and send them to contacts, or make calls via social media app WeChat, all without requiring the user to touch the phone.
For devices in China, Honor works with Baidu and other Chinese companies for some AI functions, while developing others on its own. Honor works with Google for devices sold overseas.
The new AI features are slated for release on Honor’s forthcoming Magic 7 smartphone, due for launch on Oct. 30. Honor plans to roll out AI capabilities to all its devices by the first few months of next year.
The Magic 7 will use Qualcomm‘s newly announced Snapdragon Elite 8 chip for phones. Honor on Monday had teased its new AI features at the chipmaker’s annual event.
Chinese home appliance and smartphone company Xiaomi will also launch a new phone this month that uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite 8 chip. Xiaomi has been less vocal about its AI features for smartphones.
The AI features have climbed to a new level, Toby Zhu, senior analyst, Canalys, said in a phone interview Wednesday after Honor’s event. He said the new features have greater potential to convince consumers to switch to another device.
“Apple faces challenges in China but from our data it won’t face a significant decline,” he said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.
Apple’s falling China sales
Honor, Xiaomi and Huawei have all launched foldables, a category Apple has yet to enter.
About 17% of Apple’s revenue came from Greater China in the quarter ended June 29. That’s down from 19% in the year-ago period. Apple is scheduled to release quarterly results on Oct. 31 local time.
Apple CEO Tim Cook met with China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong on Wednesday to discuss data security and cloud services, according to the ministry. Apple did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
Since launching on Sept. 20, Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max has dropped slightly in value on second-hand shopping platform Xianyu. The device was selling between 8,000 Chinese yuan ($1,122) and 10,000 yuan Wednesday, compared with 10,500 yuan to 16,300 yuan last month.
Huawei had launched its trifold Mate XT on the same day. As of Wednesday, second-hand prices for the device had dropped to the mid-20,000 yuan range, nearly half the price it was selling for on Sept. 20.
— CNBC’s Dylan Butts and Sonia Heng contributed to this report.
Dario Amodei, Anthropic CEO, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21st, 2025.
Gerry Miller | CNBC
Anthropic is in talks to raise a $3.5 billion funding round, significantly more than the amount previously expected, CNBC has confirmed.
The round would roughly triple the artificial intelligence startup’s valuation to $61.5 billion, according to two sources familiar with the deal, who asked not to be named because the details aren’t public. Lightspeed Ventures is leading the funding, with participation from General Catalyst and others, the sources said.
The financing, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, signals continued investor demand for top-tier AI companies, even in the face of potential disruption from China’s DeepSeek. Anthropic is backed by Amazon and Google, and had initially set out to raise $2 billion, according to a source.
Anthropic declined to comment.
The company’s last private market valuation was $18 billion. Amazon has poured $8 billion into the startup.
Anthropic was founded by early OpenAI employees and is the creator of the popular chatbot Claude. Earlier Monday, Anthropic released what it says is it’s “most intelligent AI model yet. Its so-called hybrid model combines an ability to reason — or stopping to think about complex answers — with a traditional model that spits out answers in real time.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Monday said the U.S. government is inefficient and in need of work as the Trump administration terminates thousands of federal employees and works to dismantle agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Dimon was asked by CNBC’s Leslie Picker whether he supported efforts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. He declined to give what he called a “binary” response, but made comments that supported the overall effort.
“The government is inefficient, not very competent, and needs a lot of work,” Dimon told Picker. “It’s not just waste and fraud, its outcomes.”
The Trump administration’s effort to rein in spending and scrutinize federal agencies “needs to be done,” Dimon added.
“Why are we spending the money on these things? Are we getting what we deserve? What should we change?” Dimon said. “It’s not just about the deficit, its about building the right policies and procedures and the government we deserve.”
Dimon said if DOGE overreaches with its cost-cutting efforts or engages in activity that’s not legal, “the courts will stop it.”
“I’m hoping it’s quite successful,” he said.
In the wide-ranging interview, Dimon also addressed his company’s push to have most workers in office five days a week, as well as his views on the Ukraine conflict, tariffs and the U.S. consumer.
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