China’s Cyberspace Administration (CAC) has cleared Apple Intelligence for release in the country, adding it to an updated list of approved generative AI services published on July 15, 2026, according to Reuters and TechCrunch reporting. Apple confirmed it had completed the required regulatory filing on July 8.
Apple’s China rollout will run on a different model than the version used elsewhere: Alibaba’s Qwen family of models will handle Apple Intelligence’s text and image understanding and generation features, an Alibaba spokesperson confirmed. A Baidu spokesperson separately confirmed the company is also working with Apple on Apple Intelligence features for Chinese users, building on Baidu’s existing role supplying search results inside Apple’s ecosystem in China.
A two-year wait
Apple first unveiled Apple Intelligence in 2024, but the assistant never launched in China because its generative AI features fall under CAC registration requirements that apply to any service offering large language model capabilities to the Chinese public. Rather than route its own foundation models through that regime, Apple opted to run the China version through domestic partners – an approach other foreign phone makers have used to satisfy the country’s data-localization and content-review rules.
The CAC listing groups Apple alongside device makers Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Samsung and Nubia, which separately registered their own on-device generative AI services for smartphones, according to reporting on the regulator’s announcement.
No launch date yet
Neither Apple nor the CAC specified when Apple Intelligence will actually reach Chinese users’ devices; regulatory approval clears the way but does not guarantee an immediate release. Alibaba’s US-listed shares rose roughly 4 to 6% in the hours after the news broke, reflecting investor expectations that the deal gives Qwen a direct channel onto a large base of iPhones.
The approval is a milestone in Apple’s effort to keep Apple Intelligence available to iPhone, iPad and Mac buyers in China – its largest market outside the US – after nearly two years without the feature there. It also gives Alibaba’s Qwen a direct route onto a huge installed base of Apple devices, at a moment when Chinese AI labs are competing hard for both domestic and international distribution deals.