Artificial Intelligence

Alibaba Unveils Qwen3-Max AI Model with 1T Parameters

Published SEP 24 2025

Story

Above: A smartphone displays the logo of Alibaba Group Holding Limited. Image credit: Cheng Xin/Getty Images

The Facts

Alibaba Cloud officially released Qwen3-Max, the company's largest language model to date, featuring over one trillion parameters, at the Apsara Conference 2025 on Wednesday.
Qwen.ai
Macau Business
The Qwen3-Max-Instruct model achieved a score of 69.6 on SWE-Bench, an authoritative benchmark for evaluating large language models on real-world software issues, placing it on par with leading closed-source models.
Qwen.ai
The Manila Times
The Qwen3-Max model was pretrained on 36 trillion tokens using a Mixture of Experts architecture. Meanwhile, training efficiency improvements achieved a 30% relative increase in Model FLOPs Utilization compared to Qwen2.5-Max-Base.
Financial Times
Qwen.ai
Alibaba's stock surged by more than 6% following the AI announcements, reaching its highest point since 2021. Total year-to-date gains rose above 107% as investors responded positively to the company's AI strategy.
Reuters
CNBC
Since launching the first generation of Qwen in 2023, Alibaba has open-sourced over 300 AI models built on its foundation models, achieving more than 600 million downloads and spawning over 170,000 derivative models globally.
Financial Times
The Manila Times
Alibaba has committed to continuing its ¥380 billion investment plan in AI and cloud infrastructure over the next three years. CEO Eddie Wu indicated that the company will increase spending further beyond this amount.
CNBC
Reuters

Sources Split

LEFT

CENTER

RIGHT

ESTAB
CRIT

CENTER

PRO
ESTAB

The Spin

Techno-optimist narrative

Alibaba's massive investment in AI infrastructure and the release of Qwen3-Max demonstrate the company's serious commitment to competing with global AI leaders. The 1 trillion parameter model's strong performance on technical benchmarks, such as SWE-Bench, proves that Chinese companies can develop world-class AI capabilities. This strategic focus on AI is a smart pivot that's already paying dividends for investors.

CNBC

Techno-skeptic narrative

The closed-source nature of Qwen3-Max contradicts Alibaba's stated commitment to open-sourcing AI models and creating an "operating system of the AI era." While the company talks about empowering developers globally and fostering collaboration, keeping their most powerful model behind API paywalls severely limits accessibility, transparency, and innovation compared to truly open alternatives.

Macau Business

Metaculus Prediction

Editor's Note

This story currently has limited coverage. We will continue to monitor all major outlets and update our reporting as additional information becomes available.