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Alibaba gains as Qwen wins Apple Intelligence nod in China
China approved Alibaba’s Qwen for Apple Intelligence on Apple devices, ending a long review and sending Alibaba shares up 3.7%.
Image: TNW
Alibaba’s Qwen has been approved to power Apple Intelligence in China across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS, ending a regulatory process that began after Apple first unveiled its AI suite in 2024.
An Alibaba spokesperson confirmed the move to CNBC.
“Qwen will be integrated into Apple Intelligence experiences.”
China’s Cyberspace Administration added Apple’s AI services to a list of approved providers alongside offerings from Huawei and other domestic companies. On the news, Alibaba’s US-listed shares rose 3.7%.
The approval follows a messy rollout. Apple Intelligence briefly appeared on Chinese iPhones in March without formal approval, creating regulatory risk before the features were removed. Apple struck its deal with Alibaba in February 2025, but Beijing’s content-filtering rules and security review process delayed the launch for more than a year.
For users in China, the integration means access to Qwen’s text and image understanding and generation tools directly inside Apple’s software, rather than through separate apps or services.
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The decision lands amid broader US-China tech tensions. Alibaba recently banned staff from using Anthropic’s Claude. In the US, lawmakers are weighing measures to limit adoption of Chinese AI models by American companies. Meta was also reportedly forced to unwind its $2 billion acquisition of Chinese company Manus after Beijing ordered the deal reversed.
Separately, PrismML — a Khosla Ventures-backed spinout from Caltech — said on Tuesday that it compressed Alibaba’s open-source Qwen model from roughly 54GB to under 4GB. The company said that lets all 27 billion parameters run on an iPhone 15 or newer. Apple is reportedly in talks with PrismML about the compression technology.
That makes the Alibaba-Apple tie-up more than a product integration. After Anthropic accused Alibaba of running the largest distillation campaign against Claude, the partnership also signals which models may end up powering some of the world’s most valuable consumer devices in China.
Enterprise Editor
Marcus follows the money. He covers enterprise software, cloud architecture, and the tectonic shifts in Big Tech strategy. He translates dense earnings calls and complex M&A activity into actionable insights about where the industry is actually heading. If a tech giant makes a silent pivot, Marcus is usually the first to notice.
via TNW
