Apple will build Alibaba's Qwen into Apple Intelligence in China

Apple will integrate Qwen, the AI model developed by Alibaba, into Apple Intelligence in China, the Seoul Economic Daily reports. It is the first time Apple has partnered with a local AI model developer since Apple Intelligence was cleared for the Chinese market. Alibaba said on social media on November 1 that it had agreed to the partnership with Apple the day before. Testing will start in the latest iOS developer beta from November 4, and the official rollout to Chinese users is scheduled to begin with iOS 27.3, due next month. According to Alibaba, Chinese users will be able to call up Qwen directly from the Siri voice assistant, writing tools and visual intelligence features, drawing on its text and image comprehension and content generation. Alibaba stressed that users can choose whether to turn on the Qwen integration, and that user queries and generated responses will not be used to train its models. The deal settles which model will power Apple's AI features for iPhone users in China, one of Apple's largest markets. It also gives Alibaba's model distribution on a large installed base of devices. Other markets are not affected.