Apple Intelligence Passes Filing, Integrates Qwen; China Version of Apple Intelligence to Launch Soon

In April 2025, China's Cyberspace Administration announced that 7 on-device generative AI services, including Apple Intelligence, have passed filing. Apple will integrate Alibaba's Qwen large model to provide text and image understanding, content generation, and other capabilities for Chinese users of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. Alibaba confirmed the partnership, stating users can experience Qwen features without switching apps.

Background: Two-Year Wait and Accidental Leak

After Apple Intelligence debuted at WWDC in June 2024, Chinese users waited nearly two years. On March 31, an "Apple Intelligence & Siri" entry briefly appeared in the settings of China-bound iPhones but was quickly removed. Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman attributed it to an accidental push, as regulatory approval was still pending at the time. Tests showed the on-device model responded quickly (rewriting a 200-word draft in under 2 seconds) but lacked precision, with AI erasure leaving shadows in complex scenes and long-text summaries missing key information.

Key Details: Filing and Model Selection

• Other approved on-device AIs include Huawei Xiaoyi, OPPO AndesGPT, vivo BlueHeart, Xiaomi HyperOS, Samsung Galaxy, and Nubia Doubao.
• Apple chose Alibaba's Qwen as the cloud model, differing from the overseas version based on Google Gemini. Filing resolves compliance issues, but the official launch date and feature completeness have not been announced.
• The leaked version relied solely on the on-device model, offering strong privacy protection but limited capabilities; integrating Qwen will address depth and accuracy shortcomings.

Impact: Market and Competition

Apple faces declining iPhone sales in China, with CEO Tim Cook acknowledging that the absence of Apple Intelligence has hurt competitiveness. Huawei, Xiaomi, and others have already deployed AI features, some integrating models like DeepSeek. This filing helps Apple fill the AI gap, but engineering tasks such as version adaptation, feature trimming, and model tuning remain. Users should watch for whether the next iOS update includes Apple Intelligence and which features are retained.