Apple trained its own AI model for China with Alibaba's help, Reuters reports, and Beijing has registered it
Three people familiar with the matter told Reuters the Cyberspace Administration of China registered Apple's generative AI service last month. That would make Apple the first foreign company cleared to run its own model there.
Reuters reported on 14 August, citing three people familiar with the matter, that Apple has trained a large language model specifically for China, with technical support from Alibaba. Apple and Alibaba declined to comment on the report.
The Cyberspace Administration of China registered Apple's generative AI service last month, Reuters said, under Apple Technology Development (Shanghai) Co. Until that July clearance, every model on the public registry belonged to a Chinese company. ChatGPT and Claude are not available in China. Apple Intelligence is expected to reach Chinese iPhones, iPads, Macs and Vision Pro through an iOS update in the coming months.
The new model is not a replacement for the local stack. Reuters said Apple plans to pair it with Alibaba's Qwen and with technology from Baidu. Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai confirmed a partnership in February 2025, saying Apple talked to several Chinese firms and chose Alibaba. Outside China, Apple has said its next foundation models will use Google's Gemini.
China is Apple's second-largest market, and Apple Intelligence has been missing there while Huawei and others already ship phones with AI features. A proprietary model gives Apple some control on the device. It also means the model has passed Beijing's content review, so Chinese regulators have a say in what it will and will not generate. Cloud queries in China are expected to go to Alibaba and Baidu, not through Apple's Private Cloud Compute. That is a different privacy deal from the one Apple sells everywhere else.
No consumer launch date has been announced. The registry clearance is a prerequisite, not a ship date. Watch the next iOS update, and whether Apple publishes how queries are split between its own model, Qwen and Baidu. Apple has not said what the model refused in order to get through the filter.