Alibaba’s Qwen AI to power Apple Intelligence features in China
Alibaba has partnered with Apple to integrate its Qwen large language model into Apple Intelligence features for users in China. This marks a significant shift as Apple adopts a Chinese AI model to power its system-level features in the region.
Why it matters
This partnership highlights the complexities of global tech regulation and the necessity for international firms to adapt AI strategies to local market requirements.
Chinese technology company Alibaba Group has teamed up with Apple to bring its Qwen artificial intelligence model into Apple Intelligence for the Chinese market, according to a Saturday report by state-run Xinhua news agency. Qwen is a family of large language models, which are AI systems trained on vast amounts of text to understand and generate human language. Apple Intelligence is the name of Apple’s suite of AI features built into its devices. Xinhua is China’s official state news agency. The feature will be available for testing in the latest iOS developer beta starting Nov. 4 and will launch with the official iOS 27.3 release in December, Alibaba said. An iOS developer beta is a pre-release version of Apple’s iPhone operating system that lets software developers test new features before the public launch.
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