Alibaba unveils its largest AI model with 1 trillion parameters
What's the story
Alibaba has unveiled its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) model, the Qwen-3-Max-Preview. The new addition to the Qwen series comes with over one trillion parameters, making it a strong competitor in the AI space. The model is now available for developers across the globe via Alibaba Cloud and OpenRouter platforms. Following the announcement of the new AI model, the company's shares surged 4% on the Hong Kong stock exhange.
Model performance
New model outperforms its predecessor and other competitors
The Qwen-3-Max-Preview is a text-only model. It has outperformed its predecessor, the Qwen3-235B-A22B-2507, in internal tests. The new model has also beaten MoonShot AI's Kimi K2, a non-reasoning version of Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 and DeepSeek V3.1 on five benchmarks. However, these results weren't published as part of an official technical report for the model. Alibaba AI engineer Binyuan Hui said in a social media post that a "thinking" version of the model was "on the way."
Parameter comparison
Qwen-3-Max-Preview is comparable to OpenAI's GPT-4.5
Alibaba's new model is comparable to OpenAI's GPT-4.5, which is estimated to have a parameter count between five and seven trillion. The Qwen-3-Max-Preview is designed to better understand text and handle complex tasks, making it a strong addition to the Qwen series launched earlier this year. The first models in the series had parameters ranging from 600 million to 235 billion.