Apple Intelligence with Alibaba comes to China in December

06/11 05:15 - Apple Intelligence with Alibaba comes to China in December
After many months of discussion, Apple has figured out a way to bring Apple Intelligence to China, working with Alibaba’s Qwen model on some features. Apple Intelligence will soon be made available as a developer beta and will ship to Chinese customers in December with iOS 27.3. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved the use of Alibaba AI models with the iPhone in October 2026. Confirming the complexity of bringing these tools to China, Apple also received clearance in July from the Cyberspace Administration of China. Apple watchers are at liberty to reflect that the news comes at the best possible time for the company, which continues to grow smartphone market share in China.  Apple Intelligence gets behind the iPhone Duo The promise of integrated AI support in the form of Apple Intelligence can only boost interest in the company’s recently introduced iPhone Duo. Recent Counterpoint Research data claims iPhone sales increased 29% year on year in China in the three weeks following launch of the 18 Pro series devices. Initial stock of the devices sold out in hours.  China is also the world’s biggest market for foldable devices, which prompted some enterprising individuals to attempt to resell purchased iPhone Duos for far above their store price — scalpers have since reduced prices, because even in iPhone-crazy China, people weren’t willing to pay so much. While it’s a big step for Apple AI in China, it’s not quite the great leap Apple may have wanted to put in place.  Siri AI sits this one out Siri AI is not supported and won’t be “anytime soon,” according to market speculation. While little is said about the reasons for that, it seems probable that political pressure in both the US and China may be partly to blame, as both nations see control of the means of AI production as essential for the future success of their differing ideologies. Apple has had to allow the Chinese government to approve ongoing updates to the suite. Chinese users can use Alibaba’s Qwen in Siri, writing tools, and visual intelligence, including functions related to text and image understanding. They don’t get Image Playground, but can expect: Writing tools Clean Up in Photos Notification summaries Email summaries and smart replies Priority Notifications Visual Intelligence Live Translation Text to Siri Qwen if you want to  Apple and Alibaba also promise to maintain privacy. Customers will be able to choose if they wish to proceed with making a request through Qwen. Alibaba also said it would not use these requests for model training, though it isn’t yet clear if requests are going to Private Cloud Compute in Apple’s Chinese AI deployment. Will the introduction of Apple Intelligence in China make a difference? It probably already is, as months of ever stronger speculation mean most Chinese consumers knew Apple AI was coming to their iPhones even as they purchased them before the announcement took place.  While the initial sales rush on Apple’s new devices among Chinese consumers has slowed, the news may help generate fresh enthusiasm for the iPhone in China. That’s great for Apple, but not such great news for some smaller smartphone vendors, who continue to be hammered by vicious increases in memory and other component prices. A critical catalyst at a critical time Speaking almost two years ago when industry observers had anticipated an Apple Intelligence launch in China would take place earlier, Morgan Stanley then suggested the Alibaba partnership would be “a critical catalyst for Apple’s competitive standing in China.”  Other than painful price increases, not much has changed, and the introduction can only help consolidate the iPhone’s appeal in China. That’s good for Apple’s customers there, and great news for Apple’s investors everywhere else. It may even do something to retain a little US soft power. In the background, we see the continued economic pressure wrought by fast-increasing memory prices. This has driven smartphone makers to raise prices, which has itself driven a 21% year on year decline in sector sales.  Apple and Samsung have proved more resilient to these price hikes than others, which means the added appeal generated by the launch of Apple Intelligence in the world’s second-largest economy is likely to make a highly significant difference to its market share in the short term, as well as shoring up share in future replacement cycles.  Now please subscribe to my daily, human-curated Apple-related news headline feed at The Core, or follow me on BlueSky, LinkedIn, or Mastodon. ...