Apple is making significant strides in establishing its AI presence in China through a joint large language model with Alibaba, circumventing regulatory barriers and potentially becoming the first foreign company with its own AI model in the country.
Apple’s push to bring its artificial intelligence features to China has moved a step closer after the company trained a large language model for the market with help from Alibaba, according to Reuters. The reported arrangement would give Apple a route into a tightly regulated market where foreign AI systems have faced significant barriers, and could make it the first overseas company permitted to run its own proprietary AI model in China.
Reuters said the Cyberspace Administration of China registered Apple’s generative AI service last month, removing a key regulatory obstacle. That approval matters because services such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude remain unavailable in the country. Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai confirmed in February that the two companies had struck an agreement, saying Apple had spoken to several Chinese firms before choosing Alibaba.
The reported plan is for Apple’s model to work alongside Alibaba’s Qwen system and technology from Baidu, although the precise division of labour remains unclear. MacRumors reported in July that Chinese regulators had approved Apple Intelligence for rollout across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro software, with Alibaba’s Qwen model handling features for users in mainland China. TechCrunch also reported that Baidu is cooperating with Apple on the project, suggesting the company is assembling a multi-part local stack rather than relying on a single partner.
The timing is important for Apple. Reuters reported earlier this year that the company had shifted its next-generation Foundation Models work towards Google’s Gemini after delays and a muted response to Apple Intelligence. In May, Apple agreed to pay $250 million to settle claims that it had misled iPhone buyers over AI functions that were not ready at launch. The company has also had to keep newer Siri AI features out of China while it works through regulatory requirements. Apple’s own feature-availability page still says Apple Intelligence is not available in mainland China, showing that even with approval, rollout can lag behind the paperwork.
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