On July 15, China's AI (Artificial Intelligence) smartphone industry reached a milestone. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issued an announcement, revealing the filing information for seven generative AI services providing on-device capabilities for smartphones. Apple Intelligence, Huawei's Xiaoyi AI Large Model, Xiaomi's HyperAI, Samsung Galaxy AI, OPPO AndesGPT, vivo's BlueLM on-device large model, and Nubia's Doubao Smartphone Large Model were all included in the list.
On the same day, the Interim Measures for the Management of Anthropomorphic Interactive Services of Artificial Intelligence officially came into effect. The simultaneous implementation of these two events marks that China's on-device AI has officially transitioned from "wild growth" to a new stage of "licensed operation."
As of June 30 this year, a total of 988 generative AI services have completed filing nationwide. However, creating a separate list specifically for smartphone on-device applications is a first. Many industry insiders believe that the increased policy certainty has finally put the industry's mind at ease, while also indicating that competition at the product level will further intensify.
01. Filing Takes Effect: On-Device AI Bids Farewell to "Unlicensed Driving"
The biggest difference in this filing compared to previous ones lies in the term "on-device." In the past, generative AI service filings primarily targeted cloud-based large models and independent applications. On-device large models, however, are deployed locally on devices, and their generated content can bypass any servers, making traditional cloud-based review and interception mechanisms inapplicable. This special filing is equivalent to formally establishing an independent regulatory framework for the new phenomenon of "AI growing inside smartphones."
Establishing a specific filing category for smartphone on-device applications reflects the regulatory authorities' emphasis on this emerging track. Since the end of 2025, when ByteDance, in collaboration with ZTE Corporation, released the first engineering prototype equipped with an AI smartphone assistant, AI smartphones have become the focus of the entire industry. Domestic smartphone manufacturers have accelerated their layouts, and overseas tech giants and smartphone brands have also successively announced plans to launch AI smartphones or related features. Meanwhile, controversies surrounding AI smartphones have never ceased. Many legal experts point out that in the AI era, traditional social governance rules face new challenges. The fact that content generated by on-device large models can bypass the cloud means a significant increase in review difficulty, and issues regarding privacy and security urgently need to be regulated.
For domestic manufacturers such as Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and Nubia, the filing confirms that their technological routes comply with national standards, allowing them to accelerate product implementation within a compliant framework. For international brands like Apple Inc. and Samsung, the significance of the filing is equally profound—regardless of where the company originates, as long as it abides by the rules established by China, it can obtain the qualification to operate legally in the world's largest consumer market.
02. Apple's AI Localization Partnerships Emerge
In this filing list, the approval of Apple Intelligence has attracted particular attention. Since its first public announcement at the 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), this AI feature customized specifically for the Chinese market has undergone more than a year of preparation and has finally obtained compliant operation qualifications. This means that the long-awaited AI features for users of mainland China iPhones are just one step away from official launch.
Along with the completion of the filing, Apple's lineup of AI partners in the Chinese market has been fully revealed. Alibaba Group confirmed that Tongyi Qianwen (Qwen) will be fully integrated into Apple Intelligence as the underlying AI capability, covering Chinese users of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. In the future, users of mainland China Apple devices will be able to directly invoke the Qwen large model at the system level without switching between different applications, enjoying native intelligent experiences such as text and image understanding, and content generation. Meanwhile, Baidu Inc. will also deeply participate in the localization construction of Apple's AI, focusing on developing AI-based search functions to comprehensively upgrade the search and Q&A experience of the Chinese version of the Siri voice assistant.
Industry analysis suggests that by introducing Alibaba's Qwen and Baidu, two major domestic AI giants, Apple has not only met regulatory requirements for data security and content compliance but also effectively made up for the shortcomings of mainland China iPhones in Chinese search and underlying large model capabilities.
03. Accelerating Penetration Rate Unlocks Trillion-Scale Market Space
Under the protection of policies, the scale-up pace of AI smartphones is comprehensively accelerating. Third-party agencies predict that models supporting generative AI will account for 45% of global smartphone shipments in 2026, and are expected to reach 52% by 2027. Generative AI is poised to officially become the standard configuration for the entire smartphone industry. The on-device AI market size is expected to leap from 321.9 billion RMB in 2025 to 1.22 trillion RMB in 2029, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40%.
Meanwhile, the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) will be held in Shanghai from July 17 to 20. According to official disclosures, this year's conference will feature the debut of a batch of world-class AI achievements, including a consumer-grade terminal product labeled as the "world's first AI agent smartphone." The market generally speculates that this product may be the mass-produced version of the second-generation Doubao smartphone, created through deep cooperation between Nubia and ByteDance. The first-generation engineering prototype once created a market frenzy with 30,000 units selling out immediately upon launch and a secondary market premium exceeding 40%, verifying users' strong demand for AI proactive service smartphones. The new model will be equipped with the complete Doubao AI system, achieving cross-application and cross-platform autonomous operation capabilities, marking the formal evolution of smartphones from "passive tools" to "proactive service intelligent butlers."
However, the industry also believes that AI smartphones currently still lack true killer applications, and commercialization remains in the early exploration stage. From "filing implementation" to "scale volume expansion," time is needed for verification. Leading enterprises in the industry chain are also closely monitoring the driving effect of AI features on upgrade demand. The true inflection point for volume growth may need to wait for the emergence of more breakthrough application scenarios.
04. From Chips to Thermal Management: The Industry Chain Ushers in Systematic Upgrades
AI smartphones pose systematic upgrade requirements for hardware. The deployment of on-device large models locally means higher technical thresholds for computing power, storage, sensing, and thermal management, bringing iterative innovation opportunities to various segmented tracks in the industry chain.
In terms of data security and biometrics, on-device AI has far higher requirements for privacy protection than traditional smartphones. Multiple terminal manufacturers have joined forces with chip and sensing companies to build a hardware security foundation, and the AI software security track has also become a hot direction for capital attention. Since content generated by on-device large models does not pass through the cloud, the importance of local security chips and encryption technologies on devices continues to be highlighted.
In the thermal management and temperature control segment, affected by the trend of making smartphones thinner, lighter, and foldable, the unit thermal dissipation pressure of AI smartphones far exceeds that of traditional models. Large model inference requires higher continuous computing power output, leading to a corresponding increase in chip power consumption, making traditional thermal solutions inadequate to meet the demand. The penetration rate of new thermal management materials, represented by graphene thermal conductive films and VC (Vapor Chamber) vapor chambers, continues to rise, and the market space is expected to expand rapidly.
In terms of optical imaging, AI smartphones have fundamentally reshaped the strategic position and hardware specifications of cameras. The three major trends of professionalized photography, three-dimensional perception, and deep software-hardware collaboration are driving the comprehensive upgrade of imaging systems. AI algorithms have put forward new requirements for hardware indicators such as sensor pixels, aperture size, and image stabilization accuracy, causing the average cost of smartphone camera modules to continue to rise.
From the perspective of the overall industrial landscape, against the backdrop of a year-on-year decline in global smartphone shipments, AI features are becoming the core grip for major manufacturers to achieve differentiated competition. With the establishment of the special filing system for on-device AI, the entire industry chain—from chips and sensors to complete machine manufacturing and software ecosystems—is accelerating the formation of a standardized development channel. Despite the remaining challenges, the implementation of the policy framework and the collective preparation of the industry chain are paving the way for large-scale popularization. The first year of AI smartphones may truly be arriving.
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