Alibaba Stock Jumps as China Approves Apple Intelligence Powered by Qwen AI

Alibaba Group shares climbed about 5% in U.S. premarket trading on Wednesday after Chinese regulators approved Apple’s on-device artificial intelligence platform for launch in China, marking a major step for the iPhone maker’s AI expansion in one of its most important markets. Apple shares also gained nearly 1% in premarket trading following the announcement.

China’s Cyberspace Administration officially added Apple’s generative AI services to its list of approved providers, allowing the company to roll out Apple Intelligence in the country. The launch will rely on Alibaba’s Qwen AI model, making it the technology powering Apple’s AI features for Chinese users across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. According to Alibaba, Qwen will support capabilities such as text generation, image recognition, and image creation.

Apple first introduced Apple Intelligence in 2024, but regulatory requirements and technology changes delayed its arrival in China. During that time, Apple rebuilt parts of its AI platform using Alphabet’s Google Gemini models while adapting the service to meet local regulations.

The approval gives Apple an opportunity to strengthen its position in China, where it has been working to regain market share against domestic rivals led by Huawei. Chinese consumers have shown strong interest in AI-powered smartphones, making the launch a potentially important catalyst for future iPhone sales.

For Alibaba, the partnership significantly expands the reach of its Qwen AI ecosystem. The company has integrated Qwen into services such as Taobao, Tmall, and Alibaba Cloud, and the collaboration with Apple introduces the AI model to hundreds of millions of iPhone users across China, further strengthening its position in the country’s rapidly growing artificial intelligence market.

Separately, CNBC reported that Apple is in early discussions with PrismML, a Caltech spinout backed by Khosla Ventures, to evaluate model-compression technology that could reduce Alibaba’s open-source Qwen 3.6 model from roughly 54 GB to under 4 GB. The technology could enable a 27-billion-parameter AI model to run directly on iPhone 15 and newer devices. PrismML CEO Babak Hassibi said Apple is actively evaluating the technology, although neither Apple nor Alibaba has announced when the newly approved AI features will become available to users.