Alibaba Office Building in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China, August 28, 2024. CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images
Alibaba launched more than 100 open-source AI models on Thursday and enhanced its own technology capabilities as it seeks to increase competition with rivals. The company stated that the newly released models, known as Qwen 2.5, are designed for use in applications and sectors ranging from automotive to gaming and scientific research. They added that these models have more advanced capabilities in mathematics and coding.
The Hangzhou-based company aims to bolster its competition with local rivals such as Baidu and Huawei, as well as U.S. giants like Microsoft. The AI models are trained on vast amounts of data. Alibaba claims that its models can understand prompts and generate texts and images. The open-source nature means that anyone—including researchers, academics, and businesses—around the world can use the models to create their own generative AI applications without needing to train their own systems, saving time and costs. By making the models open source, Alibaba hopes that more users will adopt its AI technology.
The Chinese e-commerce giant first launched Tongyi Qianwen, or Qwen, as a chatbot last year and has since released improved versions. The company states that its open-source models have been downloaded 40 million times to date. Alibaba also announced that it has updated its proprietary leading model named Qwen-Max, which is not open source. Instead, Alibaba sells its capabilities through cloud computing products for businesses.
Alibaba mentioned that Qwen Max 2.5-Max outperforms competitors such as Meta. The company also launched a new text-to-video tool based on its AI models, allowing users to input a prompt, which the AI will then use to generate a video. This is similar to Sora from OpenAI.
Eddie Wu, Alibaba’s CEO, stated, "Alibaba Cloud is investing unprecedentedly in R&D for AI technology and building its global infrastructure.” Wu, who took over as CEO last year during a historic restructuring, is trying to reignite growth in the tech giant, which faces headwinds including increasing competition and sluggish Chinese consumer spending. Alibaba is one of the largest cloud computing companies in China, but internationally, it lags behind companies like Amazon. The firm hopes its latest AI offerings will attract customers both inside and outside China to sign up for its cloud services, boosting a division that has shown early signs of stagnation in the second quarter of June.
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Alibaba launched more than 100 open-source AI models on Thursday and enhanced its own technology capabilities as it seeks to increase competition with rivals. The company stated that the newly released models, known as Qwen 2.5, are designed for use in applications and sectors ranging from automotive to gaming and scientific research. They added that these models have more advanced capabilities in mathematics and coding.
The Hangzhou-based company aims to bolster its competition with local rivals such as Baidu and Huawei, as well as U.S. giants like Microsoft. The AI models are trained on vast amounts of data. Alibaba claims that its models can understand prompts and generate texts and images. The open-source nature means that anyone—including researchers, academics, and businesses—around the world can use the models to create their own generative AI applications without needing to train their own systems, saving time and costs. By making the models open source, Alibaba hopes that more users will adopt its AI technology.
The Chinese e-commerce giant first launched Tongyi Qianwen, or Qwen, as a chatbot last year and has since released improved versions. The company states that its open-source models have been downloaded 40 million times to date. Alibaba also announced that it has updated its proprietary leading model named Qwen-Max, which is not open source. Instead, Alibaba sells its capabilities through cloud computing products for businesses.
Alibaba mentioned that Qwen Max 2.5-Max outperforms competitors such as Meta. The company also launched a new text-to-video tool based on its AI models, allowing users to input a prompt, which the AI will then use to generate a video. This is similar to Sora from OpenAI.
Eddie Wu, Alibaba’s CEO, stated, "Alibaba Cloud is investing unprecedentedly in R&D for AI technology and building its global infrastructure.” Wu, who took over as CEO last year during a historic restructuring, is trying to reignite growth in the tech giant, which faces headwinds including increasing competition and sluggish Chinese consumer spending. Alibaba is one of the largest cloud computing companies in China, but internationally, it lags behind companies like Amazon. The firm hopes its latest AI offerings will attract customers both inside and outside China to sign up for its cloud services, boosting a division that has shown early signs of stagnation in the second quarter of June.
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