Apple Intelligence comes to China, with Alibaba's Qwen inside Siri

What this is about

On Saturday, October 31, 2026, Apple and Chinese group Alibaba officially announced that Alibaba's large language model Qwen will be integrated into the Chinese version of Apple Intelligence. Chinese iPhone users will be able to use Qwen's text and image understanding and content generation directly through Siri, the system-wide Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence, without opening a separate app. Apple Intelligence was unveiled in 2024, and these features haven't been available in China until now. According to the reports, this is the most concrete progress for the Chinese market in more than two years.

You can test the features from November 4 in the latest iOS developer beta. The official launch for all users is planned for December 2026 with iOS 27.3.

Two layers: Apple's own model and Qwen in the cloud

According to BiGGo Finance, citing the architecture published by both companies, the China version works with a "two-layer model". The first layer is the Apple Foundation Models, Apple's own models, which run on the device and have been tailored specifically for China. Basic features such as removing objects from photos (Clean Up) or Live Translation run entirely locally on the iPhone. Apple stresses that this personal data doesn't go to its servers and that the company has no access to it.

The second layer is Qwen as a cloud extension. That roughly matches the role of ChatGPT in the international version of Apple Intelligence. If Siri detects that a question needs more knowledge or stronger text generation, it can pass the request to Qwen after the user agrees. Selected files, PDFs, presentations or photos can also be handed to Qwen for summaries or follow-up questions.

The three entry points

• Siri: For some requests, Siri can draw on Qwen's broader knowledge and answer directly. You can also ask questions about selected photos and documents.
• Writing Tools: "Compose with Qwen" is new. You can call it up in text fields in Notes, Mail and third-party apps. It writes text on any topic and can also generate images.
• Visual Intelligence: Launch it with the camera control, the Action button or Control Center, then choose "Ask Qwen" to identify objects, places, scenes or chart contents. According to BiGGo, Baidu's Ernie model mainly handles "search by image", while text understanding and generation stay with Qwen.

Privacy and consent

The Qwen connection is opt-in. You have to turn it on, and you can sign in with Sign in with Apple or an existing Qwen account. Before every question, document and image that goes to Qwen, the system asks for permission. Alibaba promises that queries and generated responses won't be used to train its models. Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming said Qwen will be deeply integrated into Apple ecosystem experiences to bring new intelligent services to users in China.

What's in the first wave, and what's missing

The first wave covers the basic 2024 features: Live Translation in Messages, FaceTime and Phone (face-to-face conversations also with AirPods 4, AirPods Pro 2 and newer), Writing Tools, Visual Intelligence, Clean Up, natural-language search, Genmoji, Mail priorities and summaries, notification summaries and the Reduce Interruptions Focus.

Not included is the AI version of Siri that Apple showed at WWDC 2026, with on-screen understanding and cross-app actions. According to The Next Web, "Siri AI" gained five more languages this week but still skips mainland China. You can still type to Siri, and Apple says it now follows conversations better. Other platforms and newer features will come only after the necessary approvals, according to Apple. The timeline for iPad and Mac is open. In July, Alibaba had said Qwen would be integrated in China across iOS, iPadOS, macOS and visionOS (China Daily).

Requirements and regulation

Supported devices are iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone 16 and newer, and iPhone Air and iPhone Duo. According to BiGGo, the standard iPhone 15 and older models are excluded because of too little memory. Device language and Siri language must be English or Simplified Chinese. The Qwen integration is available to users who bought an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone in China, or whose device region and Apple Account country are set to China.

On the regulatory background, the sources report: in July, Apple Intelligence appeared among seven on-device services that completed registration in China (Global Times), and China's cyberspace regulator registered Apple's service (China Daily). In early October, according to Global Times, the industry ministry approved integrating Alibaba's AI models into several Apple devices, including the new iPhone Duo. According to The Next Web, Apple trained a China-only model with Alibaba's help, and in March the features were briefly switched on just before approval. The announcement confirms a Bloomberg report from earlier this month.

Market reaction

BiGGo reports that Alibaba's US-listed shares rose more than 2 percent after hours and then fell back. On the same trading day, Apple overtook Nvidia in market value ($5.03 trillion versus $4.93 trillion), even though Apple's stock fell 1.23 percent to $344.63. Nvidia lost 4.22 percent. The gap is small, and the ranking can flip quickly. BiGGo cites disappointing results from Intel and Amazon as the trigger for the broad tech weakness. A causal link to the Qwen announcement is not established.

Our take

For Apple, the partnership closes the biggest gap in the China version: a local cloud model that covers knowledge questions and generation. For Alibaba, it means access to a huge base of iPhone users. According to BiGGo, competition among Chinese models is thus shifting from the app level to the operating system level. At the same time, the launch stays restrained: the new Siri is missing, and the hardware hurdle limits reach in the short term. Open questions are whether the December date holds, how well Qwen performs day to day, and when the other features will be approved. The privacy pledges come from the companies themselves and haven't been independently verified.