Alibaba adds to China AI breakthroughs with new Qwen model

Alibaba Group Holding has unveiled its most advanced AI model to date, Qwen3.8-Max, boasting 2.4 trillion parameters and performance rivaling leading US competitors. The new model, which ranks higher than Moonshot's Kimi K3 on multiple benchmarks, demonstrates the growing prowess of Chinese AI in the global market. Alibaba's model shows comparable or sometimes superior scores to Anthropic's Fable 5, an AI model temporarily restricted by the US due to its advanced capabilities.

This breakthrough comes amidst a surge of other Chinese AI developments, such as DeepSeek's V4 Flash and video generators from ByteDance and MiniMax Group. Investors, including Vey-Sern Ling from Union Bancaire Privée, acknowledge the narrowing performance gap between Chinese and US AI models, attributing it to reduced US chip restrictions and increased confidence in Chinese resources.

Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Max will be made available for public download next week, allowing for customization and potential cost-effectiveness, with pricing at US$2 per million input tokens and US$6 per million outputs. The model excels in autonomous coding and long-horizon execution, addressing a common challenge of performance degradation in complex AI systems.