China’s Alibaba, Moonshot claim latest flagship AI models challenge OpenAI, Google
Alibaba says Qwen3-Max-Thinking is its ‘best model so far’, while Moonshot calls Kimi K2.5 the world’s most powerful open-source model
The new models from two of China’s leading AI developers mark the first major Chinese model releases of this year, as industry observers continue to closely monitor the gap between the US and China in developing cutting-edge foundational models.
Alibaba Cloud announced its biggest-ever model, Qwen3-Max-Thinking, on Monday, which it said boasted stronger agentic and tool use capabilities. The model was released on Alibaba’s official cloud-services platform and chatbot website, with the model set to be available on its new consumer Qwen app “soon”, it said.
Alibaba Cloud is the AI and cloud computing unit of Alibaba Group Holding, which owns the Post.
“This is our best model so far,” said Zheng Chujie, an Alibaba researcher, on social media. “We have … put massive efforts [into] improving real-world user experience.”