(Reuters) -The White House and congressional officials have been scrutinizing Apple's plan to strike a deal with Alibaba to make the Chinese company's AI available on iPhones in China, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

U.S. authorities were concerned that the deal would help a Chinese company to improve its artificial intelligence capacities, broaden the reach of Chinese chatbots with censorship limits and deepen Apple's exposure to Beijing laws over censorship and data sharing, the paper said, citing three people familiar with the matter.

Apple and Alibaba did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

In February, Alibaba confirmed its partnership with Apple to support iPhones' AI services offering in China.

For Alibaba, the partnership is a major win in China's competitive AI market that is home to DeepSeek, which made headlines this year with models developed at a fraction of the cost of Western rivals.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the NYT report.