Apple plans to introduce Apple Intelligence to Chinese users in December via iOS 27.3, employing Alibaba's Qwen model for many AI functions. A developer beta begins on November 4, and the public version follows about a month later, two years after the US debut.
Supported iPhones will gain Live Translation in Messages, FaceTime and Phone, along with Writing Tools, Visual Intelligence, the Clean Up photo utility and Genmoji. Mail and notifications will receive AI-generated summaries and priority sorting, though all features require compatible hardware.
Only the iPhone 15 Pro and later devices are eligible, which includes the iPhone Air and the newly released iPhone Duo. Users must set Siri and the device language to English or Simplified Chinese.
The key addition is Qwen integration. Chinese users can invoke Alibaba's model inside Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence, asking questions about on-screen photos or PDFs. The arrangement received clearance from China's internet regulator in July, and Apple allegedly trained a China-only model with Alibaba's input.
A notable omission is the new Siri AI assistant unveiled at WWDC 2026; it will not be available in mainland China with this launch. Although the updated Siri added five languages, Chinese remains unsupported. Apple notes users can still type requests to Siri, and the system now retains conversation context better than before.
