Alibaba has announced the release of over 100 open-source artificial intelligence models, alongside significant upgrades to its proprietary technology, as it seeks to strengthen its position against competitors in the AI sector. The new models, collectively named Qwen 2.5, cater to diverse industries including automotive, gaming, and scientific research. According to the company, these models have enhanced capabilities in areas such as mathematics and coding.
The launch is part of Alibaba’s strategy to compete more aggressively with both domestic rivals like Baidu and Huawei and international giants such as Microsoft and OpenAI. AI models like these are trained on vast datasets, enabling them to understand prompts and generate text and images. By making these models open-source, Alibaba allows researchers, developers, and companies worldwide to utilize them for building generative AI applications, eliminating the need for extensive and costly training on proprietary systems.
Alibaba first introduced its Qwen series, originally named Tongyi Qianwen, last year. Since then, the company has continued to release improved versions of these models. To date, Alibaba’s open-source models have been downloaded over 40 million times. The company is aiming for broader adoption by offering these models to the public, hoping that their ease of use and versatility will drive widespread application and innovation.
In addition to its open-source offerings, Alibaba has also enhanced its proprietary AI model, Qwen-Max. Unlike the open-source models, Qwen-Max is available exclusively through Alibaba’s cloud computing services, targeting business customers. The company claims that Qwen-Max 2.5 has outperformed similar models, such as Meta’s Llama and OpenAI’s GPT-4, in various benchmarks, particularly in reasoning and language comprehension.
Alibaba has also introduced a new text-to-video tool based on its AI technology. This tool allows users to input a text prompt and generate videos accordingly, mirroring similar capabilities offered by OpenAI’s Sora. The addition of such tools demonstrates Alibaba’s commitment to expanding its AI offerings beyond traditional applications.
“Alibaba Cloud is investing heavily in AI research and global infrastructure development,” said Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba. Wu, who assumed the CEO role last year, is leading efforts to revitalize growth at Alibaba amid increased competition and challenging economic conditions in China.
Alibaba is a dominant player in China’s cloud computing market but lags behind companies like Amazon and Microsoft internationally. The company hopes that its latest AI advancements will attract more customers to its cloud services both in China and globally, potentially boosting its cloud division, which has shown signs of growth after a period of stagnation. With these new AI tools, Alibaba aims to leverage its technological expertise to drive innovation and expand its influence in the competitive global tech landscape.
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