Apple Intelligence officially supports Alibaba's Qwen models in deep tech collaboration

Apple's AI push in China is taking a concrete step forward. According to a SmartHey report, Apple Intelligence now officially supports Alibaba's Qwen large language models, with the two companies entering a deep technical collaboration.

The partnership means Apple Intelligence in China will draw on Qwen's model capabilities to power AI features, rather than relying solely on Apple's in-house models.

For Apple, China is a market it must win to make Apple Intelligence a global product. Teaming up with a leading domestic model provider is a common route to meeting localization requirements and regulatory expectations.

For Alibaba, having Qwen inside Apple's ecosystem puts its models in front of tens of millions of consumer devices — a significant ecosystem-level deployment beyond cloud and enterprise channels.

Details such as which Qwen versions will be integrated, which features will use the models first, and when the rollout begins have not been disclosed in the report.

The key thing to watch is which devices and features in Apple Intelligence's China release adopt Qwen first, and whether the collaboration extends to more Apple services over time.