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Alibaba on Monday launched Qwen 3.5, a new artificial intelligence model designed to independently execute complex tasks, as the Chinese tech giant steps up competition in the fast-crowding domestic AI market.
Alibaba said Qwen 3.5 delivers 60% lower inference costs and is eight times more efficient at handling large workloads than its immediate predecessor. The model also introduces what the company calls “visual agentic capabilities,” enabling it to autonomously take actions across mobile and desktop applications.
“Built for the agentic AI era, Qwen 3.5 helps developers and enterprises do more with the same compute, setting a new benchmark for capability per unit of inference cost,” Alibaba said in a statement.
The release comes as Alibaba seeks to expand adoption of its Qwen chatbot app in China, where competition is intensifying. The market is currently led by ByteDance’s Doubao, which commands close to 200 million users, and by fast-rising AI startup DeepSeek, which broke into global markets last year.
ByteDance on Saturday unveiled Doubao 2.0, positioning it as an upgrade tailored for the emerging AI agent ecosystem — a framing that closely mirrors Alibaba’s pitch for Qwen 3.5.
Alibaba’s latest rollout builds on recent momentum. Earlier this month, the company reported a seven-fold jump in active users on Qwen after running a coupon campaign that allowed users to purchase food and beverages directly through the chatbot, though the initiative experienced some technical issues.
The company has moved aggressively to counter DeepSeek’s rise. Last year, Alibaba was among the first Chinese tech firms to respond, releasing Qwen 2.5-Max, which it said outperformed one of DeepSeek’s flagship models.
While Alibaba did not mention DeepSeek in its Qwen 3.5 announcement, the benchmarks it released showed the model outperforming several U.S. rivals, including GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5 and Gemini 3 Pro, as well as earlier versions of Qwen.
DeepSeek is widely expected to release its next-generation model in the coming days, a development closely watched by investors and industry executives after the startup triggered a global tech stock selloff last year.
Alibaba said Qwen 3.5 delivers 60% lower inference costs and is eight times more efficient at handling large workloads than its immediate predecessor. The model also introduces what the company calls “visual agentic capabilities,” enabling it to autonomously take actions across mobile and desktop applications.
“Built for the agentic AI era, Qwen 3.5 helps developers and enterprises do more with the same compute, setting a new benchmark for capability per unit of inference cost,” Alibaba said in a statement.
The release comes as Alibaba seeks to expand adoption of its Qwen chatbot app in China, where competition is intensifying. The market is currently led by ByteDance’s Doubao, which commands close to 200 million users, and by fast-rising AI startup DeepSeek, which broke into global markets last year.
ByteDance on Saturday unveiled Doubao 2.0, positioning it as an upgrade tailored for the emerging AI agent ecosystem — a framing that closely mirrors Alibaba’s pitch for Qwen 3.5.
Alibaba’s latest rollout builds on recent momentum. Earlier this month, the company reported a seven-fold jump in active users on Qwen after running a coupon campaign that allowed users to purchase food and beverages directly through the chatbot, though the initiative experienced some technical issues.
The company has moved aggressively to counter DeepSeek’s rise. Last year, Alibaba was among the first Chinese tech firms to respond, releasing Qwen 2.5-Max, which it said outperformed one of DeepSeek’s flagship models.
While Alibaba did not mention DeepSeek in its Qwen 3.5 announcement, the benchmarks it released showed the model outperforming several U.S. rivals, including GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5 and Gemini 3 Pro, as well as earlier versions of Qwen.
DeepSeek is widely expected to release its next-generation model in the coming days, a development closely watched by investors and industry executives after the startup triggered a global tech stock selloff last year.
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