Alibaba’s Qwen to Power Apple Intelligence in China, With Testing Starting November 4

Apple will integrate Alibaba Group’s Qwen artificial intelligence models into Apple Intelligence in China, bringing AI services to Chinese iPhone users, Apple said on Saturday. Qwen-powered features will be available for testing from November 4 in the latest iOS developer beta and will be rolled out more broadly in December with the release of iOS 27.3.

The partnership will allow Chinese users to access Qwen through Siri, Apple’s writing tools and its visual intelligence feature, enabling text and image understanding, content generation and analysis of documents and photos. For some requests, Siri will be able to call on Qwen’s broader knowledge to answer directly. Users will also be able to ask questions about selected photos and documents, including PDF files and presentations.

How users will control the integration

Apple said users will be asked for permission before a question, document or image is sent to Qwen. Users can choose whether to enable the Qwen integration and can sign in through Apple or an existing Qwen account. They will remain in control of when Qwen is invoked and what information is shared, according to the companies. Alibaba said requests and responses generated through the integration will not be used to train its models.

Qwen will also be integrated into Apple’s writing tools through a “Compose with Qwen” function that generates original content from a prompt, including text and images. In Visual Intelligence, Apple’s camera-based AI feature, users can select “Ask Qwen” to identify or obtain more information about objects and places.

What the December release will and will not include

The initial China rollout will also include real-time translation, photo object removal, notification and email summaries, smart replies, and tools for rewriting, proofreading and summarizing text. 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 this year.

The first batch of features will be available on supported iPhones, including the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone 16 and later models, iPhone Air and iPhone Duo, with device and Siri languages set to English or Simplified Chinese, according to Apple. China’s cyberspace regulator registered Apple’s on-device generative AI service for use on iPhones in July, clearing a regulatory hurdle. Apple Intelligence was first unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference in 2024.

“We are delighted to partner with Apple,” Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu said. “Drawing on Alibaba’s deep AI capabilities, Qwen will be deeply integrated into experiences across the Apple ecosystem, and together we will bring new intelligent services to Apple users in China.”

Reporting based on coverage by China Daily Asia and BusinessToday.