Apple Intelligence is coming to China in December 2026 with iOS 27.3, powered by Alibaba’s Qwen artificial intelligence model, after testing begins in the iOS developer beta on 4 November.
FAKTA
- Alibaba announced on 31 October 2026 that its Qwen model will power Apple Intelligence for users in China.
- Testing starts in the iOS developer beta on 4 November, with a public rollout in iOS 27.3 in December.
- Qwen will be reached through Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence for text and image understanding and content generation.
- The first batch will be available on iPhone 15 Pro and newer models, with device and Siri languages set to English or Simplified Chinese.
- Alibaba says user requests and generated responses will not be used to train its models, and participation is opt-in.
Apple Intelligence China Qwen partnership confirmed
Apple confirmed in its China Newsroom on 31 October 2026 that a first batch of Apple Intelligence features is coming to users in China. The features will be tested in the developer beta from 4 November and rolled out with iOS 27.3 in December.
Outside China, Apple Intelligence routes some requests to ChatGPT. Inside China, the same surfaces will route to Qwen, Alibaba’s family of language models, with users signing in with a Qwen account or with Sign in with Apple.
What Chinese iPhone users will get first
The first batch includes Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence features, including asking about photos, documents such as PDFs and presentations, and a Compose feature in Writing Tools that lets Qwen write original content from a prompt.
Apple’s initial China rollout also includes real-time translation, photo object removal, notification and email summaries, smart replies, and tools for rewriting, proofreading and summarising text.
What is not included yet
The December update will not include the more advanced Siri AI capabilities or other next-generation Apple Intelligence features unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in 2026. It is iPhone only for now, and Image Playground is also not part of the first batch.
China’s cyberspace regulator registered Apple’s on-device generative AI service for use on iPhones in July 2026, clearing a major regulatory hurdle for the launch after Apple Intelligence had been missing from iPhones in China for about two years.
