Alibaba chases international AI users with new Qwen upgrades

[BEIJING] Alibaba Group Holding’s cloud division is upgrading its suite of artificial intelligence tools available overseas in a push for more global customers.

Alibaba Cloud is expanding its platform-as-a-service options and enhancing its international lineup with its latest proprietary large language models, including Qwen-Max and the DeepSeek-like QwQ-Plus reasoning model. The expansion, through its Singapore availability zones, shows Alibaba ramping up an aggressive campaign to lure AI users and developers both at home and abroad.

China’s e-commerce and cloud computing leader is on a torrid pace of AI product releases and updates since the January debut of DeepSeek. That includes business intelligence tools for developers that cost just US$1 per year for individuals. The country’s wider AI industry has flooded the market with free or budget-friendly AI services since DeepSeek surprised Silicon Valley with its cost effectiveness in model training and operation earlier this year.

Alibaba is set to release another upgrade, the Qwen three flagship model, as soon as this month, Bloomberg has reported. The Hangzhou-based company also unveiled a new version of its Quark AI assistant that integrates functions like a chatbot, deep thinking and task execution.

Beside cloud services aimed at enticing AI developers to build on its platform, the company on Tuesday also unveiled a new suite of software-as-a-service products aimed at end-users. Those include AI Doc, a tool for parsing various types of documents, and a Smart Studio for content creation with generative AI. BLOOMBERG