Oppo is the sixth-largest smartphone maker in China, according to Counterpoint Research.
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BARCELONA — Chinese smartphone firm Oppo is taking a page out of Apple’s playbook with the launch of a private cloud computing system to keep users’ sensitive conversations separate from its own artificial intelligence products.
The company on Monday announced a deal with Google that will see it use the U.S. tech firm’s Confidential Computing software, which uses encryption to ensure user data can’t be viewed by third parties, to power a new privacy-preserving solution it’s calling Private Computing Cloud.
The idea is to make sure that users’ sensitive data such as browser searches and private calls can’t be shared with Oppo for the purposes of training its AI software. Oppo already has a partnership in place with Google, where the firm uses the internet search giant’s Gemini foundation models to power its AI features.
The privacy push mimics an effort from Apple to protect user data from its own AI system, Apple Intelligence. The iPhone maker last year debuted Private Cloud Compute, or PCC, a “cloud intelligence system designed specifically for private AI processing.”
Oppo said that its Private Computing Cloud system will be integrated with several features this year, including recording and call summarization, search and image generation.
Oppo is the sixth-largest smartphone maker in China, according to Counterpoint Research, holding a 14% market share in the three months ending 2024.
“With AI being a lightning conductor for privacy concerns, particularly amongst Chinese device makers, this is an interesting move by Oppo as it seeks to gain a foothold in the AI-enabled smartphone space,” Ben Wood, chief analyst at market research firm CCS Insight, told CNBC.
Rival Chinese smartphone maker Honor announced its own tie-up with Google over the weekend.
Alongside its new AI privacy system, Oppo also announced additional new AI features, including call translation and voice transcription. It’s also embedding Google’s Gemini into its Notes, Calendar and Clock apps.
Oppo said it’s working to bring Google’s next-generation Gemini 2.0 AI model to its phones soon. Gemini 2.0 is a so-called agentic AI system, which refers to a form of AI that can fulfill various actions autonomously on users’ behalf.
The company said it is aiming to bring generation AI features to 100 million users by the end of 2025, doubling its 2024 target of 50 million.
