Apple Intelligence is coming to China
Siri AI, the centrepiece of iOS 27, is not part of it. The approval comes almost two years after Apple Intelligence first reached US iPhones with iOS 18.1, and a week before the iPhone Duo goes on sale in China. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently issued network access permits that let the iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro and older models use Alibaba’s Qwen language models and its Tongyi Wanxiang image and video model. Bloomberg reports that the wider rollout will arrive with iOS 27.3, expected in December. Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo have shipped AI features on their phones for a while, and Apple’s Greater China revenue growth has cooled from 38% in the December 2025 quarter to 22% in June.
Apple chairman Tim Cook has confirmed that the company’s AI suite has been approved in the country, with a test version due later this month.
The guardrails built with Alibaba include a filter that lets the Chinese government approve ongoing updates to the models, according to Bloomberg. Apple Intelligence is finally on its way to iPhones in China. Cook shared the update in an interview with state-backed outlet The Paper in Shanghai. The test build brings live translation, writing tools and the Clean Up feature in Photos. China’s rules on foreign AI meant Apple could not simply bring over its global setup, which uses Google’s Gemini. So it turned to Alibaba. The cyberspace regulator had registered Apple Intelligence in July. Apple is also working with Baidu on search and Siri-related features. Image Playground and Apple’s other image generation tools will be left out, and text generation will be limited in some apps. Siri AI isn’t expected anytime soon either, a wait iPhone users in the EU know well. Apple Intelligence narrows that feature gap, though Siri AI, the piece Apple has pushed hardest this year, stays out of reach for Chinese buyers. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.
Cook also met Chinese commerce minister Wang Wentao on Thursday to discuss AI development and Apple’s business in the country.