Apple Trains Its Own AI Model for China With Alibaba's Help

Apple has trained its own large language model for the Chinese market, moving away from its original plan to run Apple Intelligence in China entirely on a licensed outside model, according to a Reuters report published August 14, 2026 that cites people familiar with the matter.

The shift makes Apple the first foreign company Chinese regulators have cleared to deploy a proprietary AI model inside the country, Reuters reports. In July, China’s Cyberspace Administration registered Apple’s generative AI service, a step this site covered at the time as clearing the way for Alibaba’s Qwen models to power Apple Intelligence’s Chinese release.

A more complicated arrangement

Reuters now reports Apple actually built its own model for the market, developed with Alibaba’s technical support rather than simply running Qwen wholesale. Apple’s partnership with Alibaba dates to February 2025, when Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai first confirmed the companies would work together to bring generative AI features to iPhones sold in China. Baidu is separately supplying search results inside the Chinese version of the assistant, building on its existing role in Apple’s local ecosystem.

Apple Intelligence has not yet reached Chinese users’ devices; the company is expected to roll it out via an iOS update in the coming months, per the report. The roughly two-year gap between Apple Intelligence’s 2024 debut elsewhere and its China clearance reflects how strictly Beijing scrutinizes generative AI services offered to the public.

Why Apple built its own model

Apple has controlled the hardware, software and silicon in its products for more than a decade; handing its AI layer entirely to a Chinese partner would have been an unusual departure. Training its own model, even with outside help, lets Apple retain a degree of control it would not have by simply licensing a third-party system outright, while still satisfying China’s data-localization and content-review rules. The arrangement also comes as the extended absence of on-device AI features has reportedly weighed on iPhone sales in China, Apple’s largest market outside the US.