‘Better than DeepSeek and OpenAI’: Alibaba touts open-source AI model that beats rivals

Name: China’s Alibaba releases new AI model, said to outperform competitors Deepseek and OpenAI’s GPT-4o
Uploaded: 2025-03-06T05:17:53.000Z
Duration: 1 min 20 s
Description: China’s Alibaba releases new AI model, said to outperform competitors Deepseek and OpenAI’s GPT-4o

Alibaba says its QwQ-32B AI model outperforms DeepSeek’s R1 in coding and problem solving while using fewer resources

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Alibaba shares have surged in Hong Kong after it introduced its latest AI reasoning model. Photo: AFP

Ben Jiangin Beijing

Published: 1:17pm, 6 Mar 2025Updated: 4:26pm, 6 Mar 2025

Alibaba Group Holding on Thursday unveiled an open-source artificial intelligence (AI) reasoning model that it said surpassed the performance of DeepSeek’s R1, highlighting the Chinese technology giant’s robust AI capabilities across models and data-centre infrastructure.

Following the launch of its QwQ-32B model, Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares surged nearly 8.4 per cent to close at HK$140.80 on Thursday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Despite its relatively modest 32 billion parameters, Alibaba’s new model matched or outperformed DeepSeek’s R1, which boasts 671 billion parameters, in areas such as mathematics, coding and general problem-solving, according to a blog post by the team responsible for Alibaba’s Qwen family of AI models.

A smaller parameter count enables the model to operate with reduced computing resource requirements, facilitating wider adoption, according to the team.

The lean design of Alibaba’s model aligns with the views expressed by Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai in his recent column for the Post, where he emphasised that practical applications were key to maximising intelligence in AI model development.

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China’s Alibaba releases new AI model, said to outperform competitors Deepseek and OpenAI’s GPT-4o

The release of Alibaba’s latest reasoning model – a type of AI system designed to think, reflect and self-critique to solve complex problems – comes less than two months after DeepSeek’s R1 shook the global tech industry and stock markets in January.