The Qwen-powered feature will be available for testing in the latest iOS developer beta starting November 4, and roll out to Chinese users with the official iOS 27.3 release in December, according to Alibaba.
The partnership brings Qwen’s AI capabilities to multiple use cases within Apple’s operating system. Through Siri, Writing Tools, and Visual Intelligence, Chinese users will be able to tap Qwen’s capabilities for text and image understanding and content generation.
Notably, users can choose whether to enable the Qwen integration and what information to share. Alibaba said it will not use user requests or generated responses for model training.
The feature will be available on iOS to users who purchase an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone in China, or whose device location and Apple Account country or region are both set to China.
Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba Group, said Qwen drawing on Alibaba’s AI expertise will integrate into Apple’s ecosystem and work with Apple to deliver new AI-powered service experiences to Chinese users.
Wang Xiaojie, an AI expert at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said this is the first time a top global consumer hardware maker has used a Chinese large model as the primary system-level AI backbone in the Chinese market, a significant step in the commercial application of domestic large models.
Apple Intelligence is the AI system Apple first unveiled at its Worldwide Developers Conference in 2024. In a key regulatory move, China’s cyberspace authority completed the filing of seven on-device generative AI services for smartphones in July, including Apple Intelligence. (Xinhua)
