Apple Intelligence reaches China in December, with Alibaba's Qwen on call. Siri AI stays out.
Apple's China newsroom says testing starts November 4 and the public release comes with iOS 27.3. Qwen answers some requests, but the newer Siri AI isn't part of the package.
Apple has put a date on Apple Intelligence for China, with Alibaba’s Qwen on board, and it’s smaller than the name suggests. Apple’s China newsroom said on October 31 that testing starts on November 4 in the latest iOS developer beta, with a public release when iOS 27.3 ships in December. Apple hasn’t named a day in December.
This is the first batch Apple has officially announced for the mainland, and Apple says the features run on generative models it built itself. Alibaba’s Qwen sits next to them as an add-on.
What does Qwen actually do?
Apple says Siri can pass certain requests to Qwen when a question needs wider knowledge. Users can also ask about photos and documents, including PDFs and slide decks. Writing Tools gets a Compose option that has Qwen write something from scratch, and, according to China Daily, Visual Intelligence gets an “Ask Qwen” button for objects and places.
Access works through a Qwen account or Sign in with Apple. China Daily reports that Apple said users are asked for permission before a question, document or image goes to Qwen, and that Alibaba said those requests and responses won’t be used to train its models. I could only find those two points in China Daily’s write-up, not in the Apple release itself, so treat them as reported rather than confirmed.
The Verge likens the setup to the ChatGPT hand-off Apple added to iOS in 2024. My read: that fits Apple’s own wording, where Qwen is something Siri reaches for rather than the thing running the phone.
What’s in the first batch, and what isn’t
Apple’s list covers Live Translation in Messages, FaceTime and Phone, Writing Tools, Visual Intelligence, Clean Up in Photos, Genmoji, natural-language photo search, priority mail and notifications, summaries for mail, notifications, calls and audio notes, plus Type to Siri.
| Question | Per Apple’s China release |
|---|---|
| Siri AI and the WWDC 2026 features | Not included |
| Platforms | iPhone first; others after approvals |
| Phones | iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone 16 and later, iPhone Air, iPhone Duo |
| Languages | Siri and device both set to English or Simplified Chinese |
| Public date | December, with iOS 27.3 |
That second row matters for anyone with a Mac or iPad in China. Apple says only that support for other platforms comes once it gets the necessary approvals.
How did it get here?
China Daily says the country’s cyberspace regulator registered Apple’s on-device generative AI service in July. The Verge adds that Reuters reported in August that Apple had trained its own model for the Chinese market with Alibaba’s help. Alibaba’s chief executive, Eddie Wu, said in a statement carried by China Daily that Qwen will be “deeply integrated into experiences across the Apple ecosystem.”
One date is fuzzy.
Apple’s wording is that the features open for testing from November 4. The Verge describes the iOS 27.3 beta itself as set to launch that day. If you plan to install it, check Apple’s developer site for the actual release.
Where this leaves things
My read: this is a late launch with a short feature list. China Daily puts it more than two years after Apple Intelligence was first unveiled, and the newest layer, Siri AI, isn’t in it. That’s the same layer our earlier post on John Ternus’s AI comments found doesn’t work with an Apple Account region set to mainland China.
I’d also hold off on reading this as a model contest. Apple says its own models do translation, summaries and Clean Up. Qwen gets the open-ended questions. Whether Chinese users notice the split depends on how often Siri decides to hand off, and nobody outside Apple knows that yet.
What to watch: the iOS 27.3 beta notes, and whether Apple announces a December date for the public release.
Note on sources
Features, dates, devices and the missing Siri AI come from Apple’s own China newsroom post, which I read in Chinese. China Daily is where the permission prompt, the training pledge, the July registration and Eddie Wu’s quote come from, and I couldn’t check any of them against a second outlet. Reuters’ report on Apple’s China-specific model reaches me only through The Verge.