Apple Intelligence comes to China with iOS 27.3, with Alibaba's Qwen inside Siri
Testing starts in the developer beta on 4 November and the public release follows in December; Alibaba's Qwen powers some Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence requests, but the new Siri AI is not included.
Apple has set dates for launching Apple Intelligence in China, according to a press release on its Chinese newsroom reported by MacRumors, The Verge and 9to5Mac. Alibaba separately announced the partnership on 31 October 2026.
Timeline
- Testing begins 4 November in the latest iOS developer beta.
- Public release with iOS 27.3 in December (no exact date given).
- iPhone only at first; other platforms follow after regulatory approvals.
What’s included
- Alibaba’s Qwen can be used through Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence — for questions about photos and documents (PDFs, slides) and for generating text. Users sign in with a Qwen account or Sign in with Apple.
- Earlier Apple Intelligence features: Live Translation in Messages, FaceTime and Phone, Writing Tools, Genmoji, Clean Up in Photos, notification summaries, Smart Reply and Type to Siri, among others. SCMP counts about 18 features.
- Not included: the new Siri AI and next-generation features announced at WWDC 2026.
Devices and privacy
Supported: iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max, iPhone 16 and later, iPhone Air and iPhone Duo, with Siri and device language set to English or Simplified Chinese. According to Xinhua, Alibaba says it will not use user requests or responses to train Qwen, and the integration is optional.
The Verge notes Apple Intelligence was approved in China in July and that Reuters had reported Apple trained its own model specifically for China.
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