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Apple Reportedly Grabs The OG Team Behind Open-Source Qwen, Betting on Alibaba's AI ...
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Fusion42 · 19 July 2026 · Fusion42 review
Apple has reportedly hired the original Alibaba team behind open-source Qwen, as it deepens reliance on Chinese AI infrastructure to improve Siri in China while simultaneously lobbying Washington for access to blacklisted Chinese chip makers CXMT and YMTC.
This Wire brief sits within Fusion42's coverage of AI Frontier Models and NLP & Speech.
◆ ◆ The Wire takeaway
Apple is betting its China AI play on Alibaba's team, not its own research—meaning if US-China relations tighten further, your Siri replacement in the world's largest phone market just became a Qwen wrapper. That dependency now matters more than the tech.
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1 source · 19 Jul 2026
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