Alibaba Group Holding on Thursday unveiled an open-source artificial intelligence (AI) reasoning model that it said surpassed the performance of DeepSeek’s R1, highlighting the Chinese technology giant’s robust AI capabilities across models and data-centre infrastructure.
Advertisement
Following the launch of its QwQ-32B model, Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares surged 7.2 per cent to HK$139.30 in Thursday morning trading. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Despite its relatively modest 32 billion parameters, Alibaba’s new model matched or outperformed DeepSeek’s R1, which boasts 671 billion parameters, in areas such as mathematics, coding and general problem-solving, according to a blog post by the team responsible for Alibaba’s Qwen family of AI models.
A smaller parameter count enables the model to operate with reduced computing resource requirements, facilitating wider adoption, according to the team.
The lean design of Alibaba’s model aligns with the views expressed by Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai in his recent column for the Post, where he emphasised that practical applications were key to maximising intelligence in AI model development.
01:20
China’s Alibaba releases new AI model, said to outperform competitors Deepseek and OpenAI’s GPT-4o
China’s Alibaba releases new AI model, said to outperform competitors Deepseek and OpenAI’s GPT-4o
The release of Alibaba’s latest reasoning model – a type of AI system designed to think, reflect and self-critique to solve complex problems – comes less than two months after DeepSeek’s R1 shook the global tech industry and stock markets in January.