Alibaba introduces Qwen 3 'hybrid' AI models to rival OpenAI
What's the story
Chinese tech giant Alibaba has launched Qwen 3, a new series of AI models that it claims can rival or even surpass leading models from Google and OpenAI. The models can be downloaded under an "open" license on AI development platforms Hugging Face and GitHub. The range of these models is quite wide, varying from 0.6 billion parameters to an impressive 235 billion parameters.
Hybrid approach
Qwen 3: A hybrid AI model series
Alibaba describes its new AI models as "hybrid," capable of complex reasoning and quick responses to simpler requests. This dual functionality allows the models to fact-check themselves, much like OpenAI's o3 model, albeit with slightly higher latency. The Qwen team explained in a blog post, "We have seamlessly integrated thinking and non-thinking modes, offering users the flexibility to control the thinking budget."
Model training
Qwen 3's extensive language support and training data
Alibaba claims that the Qwen 3 models support an impressive 119 languages. The models were trained on a data set of nearly 36 trillion tokens. For reference, one million tokens is equivalent to about 750,000 words. Qwen 3's training data included textbooks, "question-answer pairs," code snippets, AI-generated data, etc. This diverse range of training material has greatly improved the capabilities of Qwen 3 over its predecessor, Qwen 2, per the company.
Model performance
Qwen 3's competitive performance in programming contests
The largest model in the Qwen 3 series, Qwen-3-235B-A22B, has beaten OpenAI's o3-mini and Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro on Codeforces, a programming contest platform. It also outperformed OpenAI's o3-mini on the latest version of AIME, a difficult math benchmark as well as BFCL, a test to evaluate a model's ability to "reason" about problems. However, this specific model is not publicly available yet.
Market presence
Qwen 3's public availability and competitive edge
The biggest publicly available model in the Qwen 3 family, Qwen3-32B, stays competitive with a range of proprietary and open AI models including Chinese AI lab DeepSeek's R1. Alibaba asserts that Qwen 3 "excels" in tool-calling capabilities as well as following instructions and copying specific data formats. Along with downloadable models, Qwen 3 is also available through cloud providers like Fireworks AI and Hyperbolic.