Alibaba adds commercial restrictions to open-weight Qwen3.8-Max AI model
Alibaba Group Holding has made the core files of its latest flagship AI model Qwen3.8-Max free for anyone to download, as the tech giant introduces new rules requiring large companies to pay for a separate commercial licence to use it. The terms apply to users or their affiliates running a “model as a service” or “AI work assistant” business whose aggregate revenue exceeds US$50 million over any…
Alibaba Group Holding has released the core files of its latest AI model, Qwen3.8-Max, for free download, but has introduced commercial restrictions for large companies. Users or their affiliates running a "model as a service" or "AI work assistant" business with annual revenue exceeding US$50 million must obtain a separate licence from Qwen before using the model or its derivatives for commercial purposes.
Internal use, however, remains exempt from this requirement. The move marks a shift from Alibaba's recent strategy of keeping its most advanced models proprietary, allowing most developers to use, copy, modify and distribute Qwen3.8-Max without paying Alibaba, though they must bear the compute costs themselves. Alibaba offers paid APIs with rates of 12 yuan (US$1.80) per million input tokens and 36 yuan (US$6) per million output tokens in China, and US$2 per million input tokens and US$6 per million output tokens internationally.
Brief written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's own syndicated text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
