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Apple AI Gets China Nod, Alibaba Shares Rise 5%

7/21/2026

27 6 Full Breakdown

Summary

Alibaba Shares Surge

Apple secured Chinese regulator approval for Apple Intelligence, with Alibaba’s Qwen model powering iPhone features.
Alibaba shares rose 5.02% on July 20, 2026, sending ADRs up about 10%–11% to $108.38.
Q4 revenue reached 243.38 billion yuan (+3% YoY), while net income rose 96% to 23.5 billion yuan.
Morgan Stanley kept an Overweight rating with a $180 target, despite a class-action lawsuit and limited Nvidia H200 chip supply.

Summary

Apple Builds 2nm

Apple will build the A20 Pro chip for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra using TSMC’s 2-nanometer process.
The chip will use Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module (WMCM) packaging that bonds the SoC and DRAM on the wafer, improving thermal performance and signal integrity for AI tasks on iOS 27.
Apple will unveil the iPhone 18 Pro and iOS 27 at its September 2026 special event, maintaining the yearly September launch tradition.

History

Historical Context

Apple’s on-device AI began with the A10 Fusion in September 2016, which introduced the first Apple-designed quad-core SoC and shipped in the iPhone 7. Building on the A11’s 600 billion-ops-per-second Neural Engine and later chips, Apple now seeks regulator approval for Apple Intelligence using Alibaba’s Qwen model while planning a 2-nm A20 Pro, reflecting a decade-long push for integrated AI hardware.

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Alibaba Shares Surge

Apple secured Chinese regulator approval for Apple Intelligence, with Alibaba’s Qwen model powering iPhone features.
Alibaba shares rose 5.02% on July 20, 2026, sending ADRs up about 10%–11% to $108.38.
Q4 revenue reached 243.38 billion yuan (+3% YoY), while net income rose 96% to 23.5 billion yuan.
Morgan Stanley kept an Overweight rating with a $180 target, despite a class-action lawsuit and limited Nvidia H200 chip supply.

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