Apple Intelligence is now allowed to run on iPhones in China: The Cyberspace Administration approved the AI service on July 15, 2026, after about two years of waiting. China’s regulators simultaneously granted six more licenses for AI assistants on smartphones. Alibaba’s language model Qwen and the search giant Baidu serve as technical partners for the Chinese market.
Regulator approves seven AI services in one day
The Chinese Cyberspace Administration granted the license for Apple Intelligence along with six other AI services for smartphones, as reported by the South China Morning Post. Among the seven approved offerings, only Samsung’s Galaxy AI was a foreign service alongside Apple Intelligence. The remaining five licenses went to Chinese providers. Apple had already introduced its AI assistant in 2024 but was not allowed to offer it in China for two years. Since the Chinese AI regulations of 2023, foreign generative AI services require their own approval there. Chinese authorities also demand that the underlying language models and the processing of sensitive user data take place within the country itself – a reason for the long delay. Apple Intelligence typically processes more complex requests through Apple’s own cloud infrastructure called Private Cloud Compute. In China, however, Alibaba’s and Baidu’s data centers and models handle this part instead. The approval explicitly applies only to iPhones. Whether iPad and Mac will also receive the green light in China remains open.
Alibaba and Baidu take over the China technology
An Alibaba spokesperson told the South China Morning Post that the Qwen model will be integrated into Apple Intelligence and will provide text and image generation for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS in China. The company did not provide details on the exact implementation or a launch date. A Baidu spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is also working with Apple on AI features for Chinese users, without disclosing technical details. TechCrunch later added this confirmation to the original report from the previous day. This marks the first time Apple is relying on two domestic AI partners simultaneously in China, rather than using its own models as in most other markets. Chinese users have so far primarily relied on domestic assistants like Baidu’s Ernie Bot or ByteDance’s Doubao, which Apple Intelligence will have to compete against in the future. Tencent and ByteDance are also said to have been in talks, but official confirmations from both companies are still pending. For Alibaba, the integration is also a prominent proof that Qwen is being used outside of Chinese proprietary products.
It remains unclear whether China will extend the approval to iPad and Mac and whether Tencent or ByteDance will join as additional partners. It will also be crucial how quickly Apple actually delivers the China version of Apple Intelligence – the company has not yet announced a specific launch date.
