Apple Intelligence custom model is launching soon in China

Posted on Aug. 14, 2026, noon

Last year,reportsconfirmedthat Apple had picked Alibaba to power its Apple Intelligence features in China. A new report fromReuters Newssuggests that Apple has finalized training its China-specific LLM, which will be powered by Alibaba’s Qwen AI.

iPhone screen with Apple Intelligence wallpaper

Apple devices showcase new AI features and Safari notifications.

The move is also a departure from Apple’s current approach to AI where it relies on third-party AI models from the likes of Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. Source