Partnership Between Alibaba and Apple to Integrate 'Qwen' AI Model into 'Apple Intelligence'

China’s tech giant Alibaba Group announced last Saturday a partnership with Apple to integrate its “Qwen” artificial intelligence model into Apple Intelligence. Alibaba stated that the Qwen-powered feature would be available for testing in the latest developer preview of the iOS operating system starting November 4, with a rollout to users in China coinciding with the official release of iOS 27.3 in December. This partnership enables the use of Qwen’s AI capabilities across multiple applications within Apple’s operating system. Through Siri, writing tools, and visual intelligence features, Chinese users will be able to leverage the model’s abilities to understand text and images and generate content. Notably, users will have the option to enable or disable the integration of the Qwen model and to specify the information they wish to share. Alibaba confirmed that it will not use user queries or the model’s generated responses for training purposes. The feature will be available on iOS for users who purchase iPhone models compatible with Apple Intelligence in China, or whose device location settings and Apple account country or region are set to China.