Shanghai Regulator Registers Apple Intelligence for iPads and Macs in China

The registration widens an approval Apple received in July to offer the service on iPhones in the country. Chinese rules require companies to register large language models and generative AI services with regulators before they are made available to the public, so the filing clears a formal hurdle for bringing the features to iPad and Mac users in Apple's largest overseas market.

The step matters because Apple Intelligence has been missing from mainland China since it began rolling out in other markets in 2024, leaving Apple without an AI offering in a market where Huawei, Xiaomi and other domestic phone makers have been promoting their own AI features. Foreign companies cannot use their own global models there without approval, which pushed Apple into a local partnership.

That partner is Alibaba. Reuters reported in August that Apple had trained a large language model specifically for the Chinese market with Alibaba's support, a departure from its usual approach of relying on third-party models for AI features in China. Alibaba supplies its Qwen model, and Chinese users are due to be able to use its text and image understanding and content generation through Siri, Apple's writing tools and visual intelligence.

In a statement in October, Alibaba said the features would reach users in China in December with iOS 27.3. A test version of the software was released on November 4.

A registration is not the same as a consumer launch. The filing confirms the service has met the regulator's registration requirement, but the features still depend on the software release that Alibaba has pointed to for December. Some reports say the China version will leave out certain advanced features available elsewhere. Because parts of the service run on partner models Apple does not fully control, later changes may also need fresh filings with Chinese regulators.

The next milestone is the general release of iOS 27.3, which Alibaba has said will bring the features to Chinese users in December.