Bottom line: Qwen 3.6 27B runs locally on iPhones and achieves similar performance to Claude’s latest Opus model—a major step forward for AI on mobile devices without internet connectivity.
A Hugging Face founder reports that the local language model Qwen 3.6 27B, which runs without an internet connection, achieves performance similar to Claude’s latest Opus model in code mode. This demonstrates rapid progress in compact AI models for mobile devices.
In a remarkable development, the Qwen 3.6 27B model can be operated on an iPhone with AI Desktop 98 practically without an internet connection. A user reports intensive use of these local language models on their mobile device. This underscores the trend that modern AI models are becoming increasingly compact and efficient while maintaining high performance standards. The fact that such advanced models can run locally on smartphones marks a turning point in the availability of artificial intelligence for end users. This eliminates dependence on cloud services, which significantly improves data protection and speed.