Beijing, China—In a strategic move poised to shake up the artificial intelligence landscape, Chinese tech giant Alibaba released its latest AI model, Qwen 2.5-Max, on the first day of the Chinese New Year. The company claims that this new model surpasses the highly acclaimed DeepSeek-V3, setting a new benchmark in AI performance.
\\"Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms … almost across the board GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3, and Llama-3.1-405B,\\" Alibaba's cloud unit announced on its official WeChat account, referencing OpenAI and Meta's most advanced open-source AI models. The release signifies Alibaba's ambitious push to lead in the rapidly evolving AI sector.
The launch of Qwen 2.5-Max follows DeepSeek's release of its AI assistant powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model on January 10, and the subsequent unveiling of its R1 model. These developments from DeepSeek have sent ripples through Silicon Valley, leading to a plunge in tech shares as investors question the massive spending plans of leading AI firms in the United States, given DeepSeek's reportedly low development and operational costs.
Alibaba's new model was accompanied by the open-sourcing of its visual model, Qwen 2.5-VL, demonstrating the company's commitment to fostering innovation and collaboration within the AI community. On the same day, Alibaba provided cloud computing support for the live broadcast of the Spring Festival Gala, China's annual variety show watched by billions, featuring a blend of music, dance, opera, martial arts, and comedy.
DeepSeek's rapid success has ignited a competitive scramble among domestic AI developers. Just two days after DeepSeek-R1's debut, ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, rolled out an update to its flagship AI model. ByteDance claimed that its updated model outperformed Microsoft-backed OpenAI's o1 in AIME—a benchmark test measuring AI models' abilities to comprehend and respond to complex instructions. This mirrors DeepSeek's assertion that its R1 model rivals OpenAI's o1 in several performance benchmarks.
The intensified rivalry among China's tech titans underscores the nation's accelerated efforts to lead in artificial intelligence. As companies like Alibaba, DeepSeek, and ByteDance push the boundaries of AI capabilities, the global tech community watches closely, anticipating how these advancements will shape the future of technology and industry dynamics.
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Alibaba drops AI model to rival DeepSeek on Chinese New Year's Day
cgtn.com
