Android is in a tricky spot within China. While the OS is run by practically every smartphone in China that’s not an iPhone, including of course handsets from domestic champions such as Xiaomi, the Chinese government maintains a near state of war against Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Google, with its libertarian ethos, antagonized the Chinese government when it operated in the country by refusing to comply with censorship requests. When Google left China, the Chinese government began traffic shaping its packets before outright blocking Google late last year. Now trying to use Google or things like Gmail or Google Apps is impossible in China without a VPN (and the majority of which no longer work inside the country). The majority of Android platforms used by Chinese vendors are heavily forked. While this presents its own security problems, it’s the best vendors can do to still use Android without relying on Google.

China’s government recognizes the problem and is developing its own indigenous mobile OS as a way to remove the dependence Chinese companies have on Google.

For Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) part, the company says that it will assist China in developing this platform to ensure compatibility with the Intel platform (a must considering the investments Intel is making in Chinese smartphone vendors).

“We have and continue to collaborate on indigenous platforms. We have thousands of software engineers and leadership here in China,” Intel’s Doug Fisher, the company’s Vice President General Manager, Software and Services Group, said at IDF Shenzhen 2015. “We will work with China’s government industries to ensure that we participate in the creation of an indigenous operating environment here in China.”

He said that Intel’s role with the China OS Association, the industry group working with China’s government, will be to “enable” the OS.

It will be interesting to see how close China lets Intel get to the development process of the indigenous OS. On one hand China would need to consult with Intel to ensure compatibility with its platform. On the other hand, China might not want to let Intel get too close to the platform for fear that it would lose face letting a foreign firm in to help with the heavy lifting development work – or worse plant a backdoor.

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“Innovating together, winning together.”

That’s how Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich defined the relationship between Intel and China during the kickoff keynote of IDF Shenzhen 2015.

“Since last year, we’ve made a lot of progress together. It’s been a good year full of innovation and full of partnerships and collaborations together,” Krzanich said on stage.

Though interference from the US government may block Intel from parts of the lucrative high-performance computing market in China, on stage Krzanich said that Intel and China maintain a strong relationship and high levels of cooperation.

“The local and global impact of our 50 years of Moore’s Law innovation and 30 years of strong collaboration and winning together in China is unmatched,” said Krzanich. “Intel remains focused on delivering leadership products and technologies in traditional areas of computing, while also investing in new areas and entrepreneurs – students, makers and developers – to find and fuel future generations of innovation with China.”

Krzanich began the keynote by highlighting the how Intel met or beat its goals from last year.

In terms of Intel’s goal to hit 40 million tablets shipped with Intel silicon inside, that goal was met and exceeded as the company announced in January as Intel says it hit not only the 40 million mark, but exceeded initial estimates by hitting 46 million.

With regards to the Smart Device Innovation Fund established last year, Intel said that so far it has been “very successful” with $37 million of the $100 million fund disbursed so far. Many of the companies highlighted by Intel as recipients of the funds are relatively unknown outside of China. Eyesmart technology, Appscomm, were some of the firms highlighted by Intel.

Updates on collaboration with Rockchip

At last year’s IDF Shenzhen, Krzanich gave a first preview of SoFIA its first SoC solution with an embedded 3G baseband. SoFIA was Intel’s plan to get a foothold into the value-oriented Chinese market.

Later in the year Intel announced that it would be collaborating with China’s Rockchip to further develop SoFIA, with Rockchip taking the lead.

Rockchip CEO Min Li

On stage at IDF Shenzhen, Krzanich and Rockchip’s CEO said that they had scored hardware wins from from 20 companies, with more than 45 tablet, phablet and smartphone designs currently in development based on the Intel Atom x3 processor reference designs.

Krzanich then demonstrated the Intel Atom x3 processor in a smartphone, supporting LTE-TDD connectivity over China Mobile’s network by streaming a song from a popular Chinese music streaming service.

A new fund for makers

Following in the footsteps of the Intel Innovation Fund for smartphone and tablet vendors, Intel announced a program to accelerate the development of maker projects powered by Intel’s Galileo and Edison platforms. It’s not clear how these funds will be disbursed, but Intel said it is investing $20 million (120 million RMB) into the project.

Real Sense gets thinner and an enterprise partner

Intel’s RealSense technology has been a favourite staple of the company during its keynotes at events like IDF and Computex. While Intel has secured a handful of wins for its 3D camera, interest from vendors has otherwise been scant. One of the few wins Intel was able to secure for the technology was the Dell Venue 7000, which had many other selling points other than the inclusion of the camera.

At this year’s IDF Shenzhen Intel announced that it had developed a new version of the camera that’s thinner and lighter than the previous version.

Intel also announced that China online mega retailer JD.com would be using Intel RealSense technology in its wharehouses to organize and sort supplies into boxes.

IDF Shenzhen 2015 continues through Wednesday and Thursday in Shenzhen.

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