Alibaba unveils Qwen2.5-Max, strengthening China's AI push
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China's rapid progress in AI is reshaping the competitive landscape, raising concerns in the United States, where companies have invested billions in AI development.
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Screengrab of a promotional video from Qwen's twitter account (@Alibaba_Qwen)
Chinese tech giant Alibaba has introduced Qwen2.5-Max, an advanced artificial intelligence model that it claims surpasses several leading AI systems in performance. The announcement comes as China's AI sector rapidly gains ground, with companies like DeepSeek challenging Silicon Valley's dominance and demonstrating the ability to develop competitive models at significantly lower costs.
A new contender in AI
In a blog post, the Qwen team stated that their latest model has outperformed DeepSeek V3 in various tests, particularly in code generation and general capabilities. It also demonstrated results on par with industry leaders like OpenAI's GPT-4 and Anthropic's Claude-3.5-Sonnet. However, Qwen2.5-Max was not directly compared to DeepSeek's R3, an AI model specializing in reasoning, which has drawn significant attention since its chatbot launch on January 20.
The model was trained on over 20 trillion tokens of data, marking a major step forward in Alibaba's AI research. The company is positioning Qwen2.5-Max as a serious competitor in a landscape where DeepSeek's recent breakthroughs have already unsettled US tech giants.
It is interesting to play with this new model. We hope you enjoy the experience in Qwen Chat:https://t.co/T0nMBnRVBB pic.twitter.com/KWQZROZ1fg
— Qwen (@Alibaba_Qwen) January 28, 2025
China's AI surge and the global race
China's rapid progress in AI is reshaping the competitive landscape, raising concerns in the United States, where companies have invested billions in AI development. Unlike US firms, Chinese startups such as DeepSeek have demonstrated the ability to achieve comparable advancements with fewer resources. DeepSeek's cost-efficient approach—developing powerful models using less advanced chips and lower energy consumption—has surprised industry analysts, prompting discussions on whether US dominance in AI is under threat.
Meanwhile, Alibaba's Qwen2.5-Max adds further pressure to this dynamic. The model is now available to developers through Alibaba Cloud services and can be accessed via Qwen Chat, the company's conversational AI platform. Additionally, it offers compatibility with OpenAI's API format, making it easier for organizations already using AI tools to adopt Alibaba's system seamlessly.
Read more: China 'stole' US tech to build AI model, claims Trump commerce nominee
With Chinese companies like DeepSeek and Alibaba accelerating their AI research, the global AI race appears to be entering a new phase of intensified competition, potentially redefining the balance of power in the industry.
