China finally cleared Apple Intelligence for launch, ending a more than two-year regulatory standoff and handing the iPhone maker a badly needed weapon against Huawei and Xiaomi in the world's biggest smartphone market.
The Cyberspace Administration of China on Wednesday included Apple's generative AI services on a list of newly approved providers, alongside offerings from local phone makers that have been shipping AI features for months. Alibaba confirmed its Qwen model will power Apple Intelligence across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS for Chinese users, enabling text and image recognition and generation directly within Apple's interface.
Apple is also working with Baidu on AI features for Chinese iPhone users, a Baidu spokesperson told Reuters. The approval ends a long wait that began when Apple first announced Apple Intelligence in 2024. The company submitted features for regulatory review in early 2025 after spending nearly a year co-developing them with Alibaba and Baidu.
Over that period, Apple scrapped its original foundation model and rebuilt the suite atop Alphabet's Google Gemini.
Alibaba's U.S.-listed shares climbed about 4% before Wednesday's market open on news of the deal. The timing is critical for Apple. iPhone shipments in China jumped 24% in the second quarter from a year earlier, making Apple the fastest-growing smartphone brand in a market that otherwise shrank, according to IDC. But that recovery happened without any AI features, a gap domestic rivals exploited aggressively.
Huawei, Xiaomi, and Oppo embedded AI into their phones well before Apple could even submit its system for approval. A working version of Apple Intelligence could sustain that momentum, though Apple is still catching up. The company briefly switched on AI features for some Chinese users in March by accident, months ahead of regulatory signoff, and a feedback form for Chinese users appeared on Apple's site late last year.
No launch date has been announced, but regulatory approval in China typically precedes a rollout by only a few months. That timeline would put a China debut roughly in line with Apple's usual fall software cycle, the same window when a rebuilt Siri powered by Google Gemini arrives with iOS 27.
The clearance comes after outgoing CEO Tim Cook joined President Donald Trump's business delegation during a visit to Beijing in May. Cook, set to hand over to John Ternus in September, has maintained ties with Beijing despite escalating US-China tensions over tariffs and technology export controls.
