Apple confirms its AI features reach China in December, with Qwen

Apple says its first Apple Intelligence features will launch in China with iOS 27.3 in December, with a developer beta from 4 November. Alibaba’s Qwen model will work inside Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence. Siri AI and Apple’s newest features are not included.

Apple will launch its first Apple Intelligence features in China in December, the company said on Saturday . The announcement confirms a Bloomberg report from earlier this month. Developers can test the features in the latest iOS beta from 4 November.

They will reach all users with iOS 27.3 in December, about two years after Apple Intelligence first launched in the US. The features run on Apple’s own models. They include Live Translation in Messages, FaceTime and Phone, Writing Tools, Visual Intelligence, the Clean Up photo tool and Genmoji.

Mail and notifications also get summaries and priority sorting. Apple has also teamed up with Alibaba. Users can tap its Qwen model inside Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence, for example to ask about a photo or a PDF.

China’s internet regulator cleared the setup in July. The launch leaves out Siri AI, the rebuilt assistant Apple showed at WWDC 2026, along with its other newest features. Siri AI added five languages this week but still skips mainland China.

Users can still type to Siri, which Apple says now follows a conversation better. The features work on the iPhone 15 Pro and newer models, including the iPhone Air and iPhone Duo. Siri and the phone must be set to English or simplified Chinese.

The road here has been bumpy. Apple trained a China-only model with Alibaba’s help, and in March the features briefly went live before they were approved. Get the TNW newsletter Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Also tagged with