China’s Alibaba takes another swipe at America’s AI supremacy
The Alibaba logo is displayed outside its headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. | Image: NurPhoto via Getty Images Chinese tech giant Alibaba released what it says is its largest and "most capable AI model to date," claiming performance rivaling the best systems from US frontier labs Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as domestic rivals like Moonshot AI's Kimi K3. Alibaba said it was making the model, Qwen3.8-Max, widely available to users in a blog post published on M
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Chinese tech company Alibaba released what it describes as its largest and most capable AI model to date, claiming its performance matches top systems from US companies and Chinese competitors. The model's performance on various benchmark tests and comparison platforms shows results comparable to or sometimes exceeding leading American AI systems. This release intensifies competition between Chinese and American AI companies, with Chinese firms appearing to narrow the technological gap and increasing their release tempo in recent weeks. The release also highlights a strategic difference: Chinese AI models are increasingly released as open-weight systems that give developers more control, while major US companies typically keep their systems proprietary.
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