Alibaba partners with Apple to bring Qwen AI to iPhone users in China

Alibaba has announced a partnership to put its Qwen AI model inside Apple Intelligence for users in China. The integration will bring text and image capabilities to Siri and other Apple tools. Alibaba says developer testing starts November 4, 2026, ahead of a planned December rollout with iOS 27.3.

Qwen reaches users through Apple’s tools

The partnership places Qwen within Apple’s operating system. Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence are the three named routes to the model, according to Xinhua’s report published by China Daily. Through those features, users will be able to draw on Qwen to understand text and images, as well as generate content.

Who qualifies—and what users control

The announced availability is for iOS users. Eligibility depends on where the phone was purchased or a combination of device and account settings:

• Users who purchase an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone in China.
• Users whose device location and Apple Account country or region are both set to China—not just the account setting alone.

Access to Qwen will be optional. Users can choose whether to enable the integration and what information to share. Alibaba also says it will not use user requests or generated responses for model training.

Wang Xiaojie, an AI expert at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, described the deal as a significant commercial step for Chinese models. In his assessment, it marks the first use of a Chinese large model as the primary system-level AI backbone by a top global consumer hardware maker in China.