Apple Intelligence approved for launch in China with Alibaba and Baidu

The Baidu partnership was also rumored, but reports at the time claimed Apple was facing issues adapting its models for Chinese customers. Apple is also said to be exploring integrations with DeepSeek and ByteDance.

A lack of approval by Chinese regulators has led to Apple Intelligence features, which debuted in 2024, being delayed in the Chinese market.

Alibaba earlier confirmed the company’s news to CNBC in a statement, saying that its Qwen models would be “integrated into Apple Intelligence experiences,” though it did not provide a time frame. It also said the integrations would involve AI capabilities like “text and image understanding and generation.”

This article was updated Thursday, July 16, to add the statement by Baidu.