Apple has trained its own large language model for the Chinese market with Alibaba’s support, a striking break from the company’s usual habit of leaning on other people’s models.
According to a Reuters report, Apple is the first foreign firm Beijing has approved to offer a proprietary AI model in mainland China, a rare concession in a market that guards its algorithms closely.
The model will power Apple Intelligence on the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro sold in China, with a rollout expected in the coming months.
It is the payoff of a partnership that Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai confirmed publicly back in February 2025, and that has taken most of the time since to clear the country’s regulators.
For a company that prizes control over every layer of its products, the arrangement is a curious one. Apple has trained the model, but the intelligence underneath is not entirely its own.
