Apple Intelligence approved in China, built on Qwen and Baidu, but ships without Siri AI

Apple's long-delayed China launch of Apple Intelligence is finally moving. Tim Cook confirmed regulatory approval, and a test version is rolling out with a subset of features: live translation, writing tools and image cleanup. A broader release is targeted for iOS 27.3 in December.

Technically, Apple cannot use its global model stack in mainland China. The China version relies on models built with Alibaba's Qwen and Baidu, while Apple handles device integration. The flagship conversational Siri AI is notably absent, as are Image Playground and the newer Genmoji. Apple appears to be launching first the features that are easiest to clear with regulators and least dependent on open-ended generation.

Competitively, Apple has lost ground in China to domestic Android makers that shipped deep AI assistants long ago. A partial feature set may not change buying decisions, but it removes a talking point that iPhones in China lack AI entirely. For Alibaba, the deal is another distribution win for Qwen. This week Qwen also landed on Theta EdgeCloud and replaced Mistral at Ecosia.

Watch two things. First, whether conversational Siri ever ships in China, and on which partner model. Second, how Apple squares its privacy messaging — Private Cloud Compute, zero data retention — with Chinese partner-hosted inference. Details on where China queries are processed have not been disclosed.