ModelBest’s MiniCPM Powers Samsung Phones as On-Device AI Goes Mainstream
Chinese on-device AI startup ModelBest has secured a partnership with Samsung to embed its proprietary MiniCPM series of edge AI models across multiple flagship smartphone lines, marking a significant step in the commercialization of on-device large language models in China's mobile market.
According to an exclusive report by Zhìnéng Yǒngxiàn, published on July 15, 2026, the deal positions ModelBest as a third-party AI model supplier within Samsung's device ecosystem — a role that has traditionally been filled by handset manufacturers' own in-house AI teams.
The partnership coincides with a broader regulatory milestone. China's Cyberspace Administration published an announcement on the same day confirming that seven on-device generative AI services had completed the mandatory filing process, including Apple Intelligence, Huawei's Xiaoyi AI, OPPO's Andes GPT, vivo's BlueHeart, Xiaomi's HyperAI, Samsung Galaxy AI, and Nubia's Doubao mobile model. Industry observers view the simultaneous approvals as a signal that on-device AI in China has moved beyond the proof-of-concept stage into scaled commercial deployment.
The development also drew attention to Alibaba, which confirmed on the same day that its Qwen large language model would be integrated into Apple Intelligence on China-market iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS devices. Alibaba's shares rose more than 5% following the announcement.
Founded in August 2022 and incubated out of Tsinghua University's Natural Language Processing Laboratory, ModelBest has built its strategy around a concept the company calls "knowledge density" — the idea that intelligence per parameter can grow exponentially over time. In 2024, the company and Tsinghua researchers formalized this as the "Densing Law," projecting that the peak capability density of open-source models doubles roughly every 3.5 months. The company's latest MiniCPM5-1B model, released in May 2026, achieves a score of 17.9 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index with just 1 billion parameters, outperforming several larger open-source models. Another model, MiniCPM-V 4.6, runs on smartphones with only 1.3 billion parameters and 6GB of memory, supporting iOS, Android, and HarmonyOS.
ModelBest's cumulative funding exceeded RMB 5 billion yuan (approximately US$693 million) in the first half of 2026, with its valuation surpassing RMB 20 billion yuan, making it the highest-valued unicorn in China's on-device AI sector, according to investment data platform Touzijie. The company's open-source MiniCPM models have been downloaded more than 38 million times across GitHub and Hugging Face.
Beyond smartphones, ModelBest's in-car AI agent SuperMate is on track to be deployed in more than 300,000 production vehicles by end-2026, covering brands including Geely, SAIC-Volkswagen, GAC, and Mazda.
The precise role MiniCPM will play within Samsung's AI stack remains to be clarified. Samsung has been deepening its integration with Google's Gemini ahead of the Galaxy Unpacked 2026 event scheduled for July 22 in London. The emergence of independent AI model vendors as strategic partners to global handset makers suggests a structural shift in how mobile AI capabilities are sourced — one that could reshape competitive dynamics across both the smartphone and AI industries.
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