Throughout this year, several publications reported on Apple Intelligence expanding to China. In February, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said Apple and Alibaba had made a deal so the company could expand its AI efforts in the country. Back then, reports said the Chinese government required Apple to use local models to power its Apple Intelligence platform, and that devices purchased in China would have to comply with this legislation.
Then, a couple of months later, Apple added support for Chinese on Apple Intelligence, suggesting a launch could be nearing. Still, by June, when Reuters revealed that Alibaba’s Qwen3 AI model would be responsible for powering Apple’s MLX architecture, we still didn’t have a proper release date.
Since then, Apple has released iOS 26 and iOS 26.1, and iOS 26.2 is just around the corner. Still, there is no sign of when the company might expand Apple Intelligence to China. That said, MacRumors spotted a new hint that Apple continues working to bring its AI platform to the region.
Apple wants feedback on Apple Intelligence from Chinese customers
According to MacRumors, Apple launched an Apple Intelligence feedback form on the company’s website, which has been taken down at the time of writing. The form reportedly required a +86 telephone number, which means Apple might be focusing on customers based in China. On the form, customers could share feedback on the Apple Intelligence platform and report their experience with Apple’s AI features, such as Writing Tools, notification summaries, Smart Replies, Call Recordings, and more.
Since no Apple Intelligence feature is currently available in the country, this is yet another hint that the company continues to work to bring its platform to China. Unlike in other countries, Apple is using Alibaba to censor and filter AI output to comply with requirements from the local government. Apple is also expected to use Baidu for other AI features, such as Visual Intelligence and search. BGR will let you know once Apple is ready to release Apple Intelligence in the region. In the meantime, Chinese speakers abroad can already take advantage of Apple Intelligence and the recently released Live Translation feature.
