Alibaba's Qwen Integrates with Apple Intelligence in China
Apple announced the launch of Apple Intelligence in China, integrating Alibaba's Qwen model into Siri, writing tools, and visual intelligence. The feature will be officially released with iOS 27.3 in December, allowing users to opt-in for privacy protection.
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IT Home reported on October 31 that Apple announced early today (October 31) that the first batch of Apple Intelligence features is coming to China. The company has partnered with Alibaba to integrate Qwen into certain experiences. This marks the first substantive progress for the mainland Chinese version of Apple Intelligence since its launch in 2024.
According to a joint announcement by Alibaba, users in China can directly leverage Qwen’s capabilities for text and image understanding, as well as content generation, within Siri, Writing Tools, and Visual Intelligence. These features will be available for testing starting November 4 with the latest iOS Developer Beta and will officially roll out to users in China with the release of iOS 27.3 in December.
Siri can directly access Qwen’s knowledge base to answer user queries within the interface. Through Siri, users can also ask Qwen questions using their own selected documents and photos. User consent will always be obtained before any questions, documents, or images are sent to Qwen.
Qwen has also been integrated into Apple’s system-level Writing Tools, offering users the "Compose with Qwen" feature. "Compose with Qwen" helps users generate content based on any topic. Users can also use this feature to generate images.
On iPhone, users can gain deeper insights into their surroundings through Visual Intelligence, which includes an option to "Ask Qwen" to identify what they are seeing. Visual Intelligence can be activated via Camera Control, the Action Button, or Control Center.
IT Home noted that Alibaba emphasized in the announcement that users have full autonomy over whether to enable Qwen integration. Once enabled, users can sign in via Apple ID or their own Qwen app account to use Qwen within Siri, Writing Tools, and Visual Intelligence. Users decide when to use Qwen and what information to share. To protect user privacy, neither user requests nor generated responses will be used by Alibaba for model training.
Currently, Qwen integration will be available in iOS, targeting iPhone users who purchased devices supporting Apple Intelligence in China, or those whose device location and Apple Account region are both set to China.