Cook Confirms Apple Intelligence Will Reach China This Month as DeepSeek Restores Service After Outage

According to people familiar with the matter, Alibaba's Qwen will be integrated into Apple Intelligence as an AI capability, giving users of iOS, iPadOS, macOS and visionOS in China text and image understanding and content generation without switching between apps. Ifanr reported earlier that the partnership between Apple and Alibaba includes at least two parts: integrating Qwen into Apple Intelligence and jointly training a model tailored to the Chinese market. Alibaba has said the two sides will also optimize the model around local needs and services.

DeepSeek issued a service restoration and compensation notice on the afternoon of October 15, apologizing for an API failure that ran from 8:11 to 13:04 that day and promising a full refund in the form of bonus credits based on each account's actual consumption between October 8 and 14. Yicai and The Paper reported that the credits will be applied automatically and that API billing will draw from the bonus balance first, with the amount depending on each account's usage over the past week. The compensation covers API consumption rather than cash payments to all users of the app. The company said it has begun a full review of service stability and will identify and remove single points of dependency. Conversation and two API services were affected during the morning outage; DeepSeek said at 9:06 that it had located the cause, at 12:49 that a fix had been implemented and was being monitored, and at 13:04 that service had recovered.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reported third-quarter results for the period ended September 30. Consolidated revenue under TIFRS was NT$1,494.24 billion, up 50.9 percent year on year, while net profit was NT$763.06 billion, up 68.7 percent year on year and 8.0 percent quarter on quarter. Diluted earnings per share were NT$29.43. Revenue in US dollars was $46.72 billion, up 41.2 percent. Gross margin was 66.4 percent, operating margin 58.7 percent and net margin 51.1 percent. By node, 2-nanometer output accounted for 8 percent of wafer revenue, with 3nm at 33 percent, 5nm at 28 percent and 7nm at 10 percent; 7nm and more advanced nodes together accounted for 79 percent. Chief financial officer Wendell Huang said the quarter was supported by strong demand for advanced nodes and that the fourth quarter would continue to benefit, including from the rapid ramp of 2nm. The company guided fourth-quarter revenue of $52.3 billion to $54.3 billion, with gross margin of 65 to 67 percent and operating margin of 56.5 to 58.5 percent.

Rockstar Games released a launch trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI on October 15. The roughly 90-second video again showed scenes from Vice City and the state of Leonida. The game is scheduled to arrive on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19, five weeks away. The Verge reported that Rockstar said the new footage was recorded entirely on PS5, and that the soundtrack uses a new track from the electronic duo Justice, which also worked on the game's score. The story follows Jason and Lucia, who become entangled in a crime conspiracy across Leonida after a seemingly easy job goes wrong and must rely on each other to escape. The trailer focuses on characters and atmosphere; a longer gameplay demonstration was shown in August. It has been 13 years since the previous mainline GTA entry.

Reuters reported on October 15 that some current and potential investors in Anthropic have begun discussing a valuation of about $1.5 trillion, below an earlier expectation of roughly $2 trillion for a November offering. The information came from four people familiar with the matter and reflects investor discussions, not final offering pricing. At an investor meeting on Wednesday, Anthropic said third-quarter revenue was $16.8 billion, up 45 percent from the previous quarter, and that it was profitable on an adjusted basis in the period. Second-quarter revenue was $11.6 billion, more than double the first quarter. Some investors were disappointed by the slower sequential growth in the latest quarter. Chief executive Dario Amodei and chief financial officer Krishna Rao attended the meeting at the company's San Francisco headquarters. Reuters said the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Corporate expense management company Ramp announced a new funding round on October 15. TechCrunch reported the round totaled $1.85 billion and valued the company at $60 billion, four months after it raised $750 million at a $44 billion valuation in June. The round was co-led by Dragoneer, Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, Sands Capital and Avenir Growth. In a public letter the same day, Ramp's two co-CEOs said the company has 85,000 customers, annualized revenue of more than $2 billion and positive cash flow; the annualized figure reflects the current pace of business rather than disclosed full-year revenue. Ramp is expanding from corporate cards and expense reimbursement into procurement, payments, accounts receivable and accounting automation.

Rivian founder and chief executive RJ Scaringe said at TechCrunch Disrupt this week that the company plans to let its vehicles run AI agents from outside firms such as Anthropic. Rivian already offers a self-developed in-car assistant; third-party integration remains a next step. According to the October 15 on-site interview, Rivian's agent framework first determines user intent and then assigns tasks to on-device or cloud models. Current uses include adjusting temperature, turning on seat heating and summarizing news, and since May the assistant has been able to access external applications such as Google Calendar. Scaringe gave the example of a driver asking to turn on seat ventilation and then picking up a dinner plan discussed the previous day on another device, requiring cooperation with model companies to connect user context. He also set a clear safety boundary: agents will not decide braking or steering, and vehicle-level control will not be handed to an agent. Rivian gave no launch date for third-party integration; it will hold an AI and autonomous driving event in December.

Bloomberg reported on October 15 that ByteDance is in advanced talks with MediaTek over a data center chip supply agreement, with the two sides close to a deal. People familiar with the matter said MediaTek plans to provide application-specific integrated circuits customized for ByteDance's platforms to support its data center operations, with purchase volumes not yet determined. ASICs are designed around specific tasks or platforms rather than general-purpose processing. Reuters subsequently relayed news of the talks. The two sides remain in negotiations.

Volvo Cars said on October 15 that it is expanding its partnership with Nvidia, combining its vehicle safety systems with Nvidia's AI and accelerated computing for assisted and autonomous driving in next-generation models. The expanded cooperation covers the Hyperion sensor and compute architecture, Halos OS and the Alpamayo Stack driving software. The companies aim for vehicles to handle complete journeys from highways and busy city streets to parking, and to progressively introduce capabilities that allow drivers to look away and further disengage from the driving task. Volvo said the technology will first be used in one next-generation model as part of a new product program. The partnership dates to 2017; the announcement describes future technology adoption, and vehicles on sale today do not immediately gain those capabilities.

Time published its 2026 best inventions list on October 15, including Ant Group's health AI app AQ and Alipay AI payments in the health and wellbeing and finance and digital assets categories respectively. Time's description of AQ focused on access to medical services: users can upload photos of skin problems, receive an initial AI assessment and then connect with a doctor to confirm or correct it. The app launched in 2025 and passed 150 million users in September. Alipay AI payments allow compatible agents, apps and devices to complete transactions after user authorization; users state a need in natural language, the agent searches options and asks for confirmation before payment. Time said more than 100 million people have used the service, which processed more than 120 million transactions in a single week in February. The list covers 300 inventions plus 100 special mentions, judged on originality, efficacy, ambition and impact.

Apple published repair prices for its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo. Jiemian News reported on October 15, citing Apple's website fee schedule, that out-of-warranty service for a damaged inner display is estimated at 7,998 yuan, an outer display at 3,198 yuan and the battery at 1,898 yuan. Under AppleCare+, the inner display fee falls to 628 yuan and the outer display to 188 yuan. The AppleCare+ plan for the iPhone Duo costs 2,599 yuan, with the plan fee and per-repair service fees charged separately. Apple's support page says devices must be inspected before a final service fee is determined and that out-of-warranty estimates apply to repairs by Apple, while authorized service providers can set their own out-of-warranty charges. Apple customer service told Jiemian that "other damage" may involve more parts such as the camera and mainboard, with actual quotes assessed by store engineers. The iPhone Duo opens for preorder on October 16 and goes on sale on October 23 in four storage capacities and two colors, Starlight White and Night Sky.

Among other announcements, Xiaomi open-sourced MiDashengLM-Spatial, a model designed to judge sound direction and movement; Meta released open weights for Muse Spark Open, which can run locally on two Mac Studio machines; StepFun opened the weights of Step 5 Preview alongside a long-horizon agent technical plan; Ant Ling open-sourced Ling-3.1-flash, with deployment tests reduced to four cards; and Figma launched Specs, placing Markdown, design files and agents on the same canvas. Google said it validated "magic state cultivation" on its Willow chip, reducing the relevant error to about one-fortieth. Amazon released two Bee AI devices starting at $74.99 for a band, Bluesky extended Attie to generate shareable mini-games and polls from text, Nubia launched the Red Magic 12 Pro+ from 6,999 yuan with a 185Hz under-display full screen and RGB water cooling, XPeng opened preorders for the MONA L05 from 169,800 yuan, Tesla began selling a children's balance bike for 1,399 yuan, and Douyin kicked off its Double 11 campaign focused on in-stock goods with coupons issued across Doubao, Hongguo and other platforms.

【Editor's Summary】Apple has secured approval to bring its first Apple Intelligence features to China this month, with Alibaba's Qwen expected to supply local AI capabilities, a step that shapes how the company competes in its largest market outside the United States. The same day brought an apology and API refunds from DeepSeek after a five-hour outage, record quarterly profit growth at TSMC on advanced-node demand, and signs that Anthropic's expected IPO valuation has cooled among some investors.