Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has published a guide explaining how eligible Mac users in mainland China can connect Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) Qwen artificial intelligence service to Siri and the Writing Tools feature.
The Mac-specific arrangement is designed to help Apple compete in China’s fast-moving AI PC market, where it has been steadily losing ground to domestic manufacturers.
Apple’s market share in mainland China now sits at just 9% of the PC market, compared to Lenovo’s 31% and Huawei’s 16%, according to data from Omdia.
Mac shipments in mainland China fell 9% in the first quarter year on year to approximately 800,000 units, underscoring the urgency of Apple’s push to offer locally competitive AI capabilities.
Qwen is Alibaba’s family of generative AI models capable of creating text and images, as well as analyzing documents, photos, and other material in response to user prompts.
Users who opt in can access Qwen through Siri for more detailed responses to certain requests, including the analysis of photos and documents, according to Apple’s updated Chinese-language guide.
Writing Tools can also draw on Qwen to generate text or images from a description, expanding the creative and productivity functions available to Mac users in China.
The extension is intended for Macs running macOS 26.6 or later and requires users to activate the extension and sign in to a Qwen account under China-specific conditions.
Apple’s guide specifies that Alibaba cannot use any shared materials to train or improve its AI models, a condition likely aimed at addressing user privacy concerns.
Linking Qwen to Siri and Writing Tools gives Apple a locally compliant route to offer more capable document, image, and content-creation functions while retaining full control of the Mac interface.
Lenovo has made its Tianxi personal AI agent central to its AI PC strategy, while Huawei continues to build AI functions across its HarmonyOS ecosystem, intensifying competitive pressure on Apple.
For Alibaba, integration with Apple’s built-in software could significantly broaden Qwen’s reach well beyond its own applications and cloud services.
Alibaba has previously stated that Qwen will be incorporated into Apple Intelligence across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro software in China, though Apple’s newly published guide currently covers Macs only.
Alibaba this week also released Qwen3.8-Max, a 2.4-trillion-parameter model it describes as its most capable to date, though Apple’s guide does not specify which Qwen model will power the Mac extension.
