Apple wants its big AI play to be everywhere, but China is proving to be the exception. Reports indicate that Apple Intelligence in China won’t arrive until the end of 2025, and when it does, it will be in a censored form. That means no free-flowing chatbot answers on certain topics, no chance of hearing a Siri quip about politics, and definitely no mention of history that Beijing would rather not revisit.
The plan is to tie the rollout with iOS 26, turning Apple Intelligence into a shiny reason to upgrade iPhones in a market where sales have been slowing. But to get there, Apple has to bend. Partnerships with firms like Alibaba are helping shape this local version of the AI, making sure responses are scrubbed of anything too sensitive. It’s not a new pattern for Apple in China. The App Store has long had limits, and iCloud data for Chinese users has been stored on state-run servers since 2021.
The delay itself is also part of the story. Apple originally aimed for April 2025. Then spring became summer, summer became autumn, and now the target is the end of the year. Analysts think approvals are caught up in something bigger: the tug of war between Washington and Beijing. Regulatory sign-offs look less like paperwork and more like bargaining chips in trade talks.
For users, the result will be two versions of Apple Intelligence. One that works freely in the U.S. and Europe, and one that quietly avoids certain words in China. That split raises a question: will Chinese consumers trust an AI that edits itself? Apple is betting they’ll still see value in the features, from better language support to AI-powered writing tools, especially with rivals like Huawei pushing their own homegrown AI hard.
The company’s collaboration with Alibaba is also deeper than just filtering. Models like Qwen3 are being tuned for Apple’s ecosystem, and there’s talk of expanding support for Chinese dialects in 2025. At the same time, lawmakers in the U.S. are watching. The House Judiciary Committee has already pressed Apple on how much control it’s giving up in exchange for staying in the Chinese market.
So the wait for Apple Intelligence in China isn’t just about software. It’s about Apple walking a tightrope between two governments, two sets of rules, and two very different visions of what AI should be allowed to say. By the time iOS 26 ships, we’ll see whether Apple’s censored AI feels like a feature or like a watered-down compromise.
(via Bloomberg)
