On Thursday, Alibaba unveiled over 100 open-source AI models and enhanced its proprietary technology to intensify competition with its rivals.
The new models, branded as Qwen 2.5, are intended for various applications, including automobiles, gaming, and scientific research. According to Alibaba, these models offer improved capabilities in mathematics and coding.
Based in Hangzhou, the company aims to boost competition not only with domestic competitors like Baidu and Huawei but also with major U.S. players such as Microsoft and OpenAI.
AI models are trained on extensive datasets, and Alibaba claims that its models can understand prompts and generate text and images.
By making these models open-source, Alibaba allows researchers, academics, and companies worldwide to use them for creating their own generative AI applications, eliminating the need to develop and train their own systems, which saves both time and costs. The company hopes that by providing open access, it will increase the adoption of its AI technology.
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Alibaba initially launched its Tongyi Qianwen, or Qwen, model last year and has since released enhanced versions. The company reports that its open-source models have been downloaded 40 million times.
Additionally, The tech giant has upgraded its proprietary flagship model, Qwen-Max, which is not open-source. This model is available through Alibaba’s cloud computing services for businesses. According to the company, Qwen-Max 2.5 has outperformed competitors like Meta’s Llama and OpenAI’s GPT-4 in areas such as reasoning and language comprehension.
Alibaba has also introduced a new text-to-video tool powered by its AI models. Users can provide a prompt, and the AI will generate a video based on that input. This tool is comparable to OpenAI’s Sora.
“Alibaba Cloud is investing, with unprecedented intensity, in the research and development of AI technology and the building of its global infrastructure,” Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba, said in a statement.
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