Prime Highlights:
The new AI model from Alibaba is claimed to outperform DeepSeek-V3, OpenAI’s GPT-4, and Meta’s Llama-3.1-405B across multiple benchmarks.
The release occurred on the first day of the Lunar New Year, signaling the pressure Alibaba feels from DeepSeek’s recent success.
The launch of DeepSeek’s V3 and R1 models in January 2025 has caused significant disruption in the AI market, including a drop-in tech stocks and raised concerns about high costs at U.S.-backed AI firms.
Key Background:
Alibaba has launched its new Qwen 2.5-Max AI model, claiming it outperforms the highly regarded DeepSeek-V3, marking a significant development in the competitive Chinese AI market. The release occurred on the first day of the Lunar New Year, a time typically associated with holiday breaks in China, signaling the urgency felt by Alibaba in response to the rapid rise of the AI startup DeepSeek.
According to Alibaba’s cloud division, Qwen 2.5-Max surpasses not only DeepSeek-V3, but also industry giants such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Meta’s Llama-3.1-405B in multiple performance areas. The announcement emphasized that the new model leads in several benchmarks, including those measuring AI’s ability to understand and generate complex instructions.
This move by Alibaba comes amid growing competition from DeepSeek, whose January 2025 releases, the DeepSeek-V3 and R1 models, have made waves globally. DeepSeek’s affordable AI technology and low development costs have triggered concerns within Silicon Valley, with investors questioning the large-scale spending of U.S.-backed AI companies. As a result, domestic players like ByteDance have also accelerated the release of advanced AI models to keep pace.
The introduction of DeepSeek’s V2 model last year sparked a price war in China, forcing Alibaba and other companies like Baidu and Tencent to slash prices significantly. DeepSeek’s founder, Liang Wenfeng, has stated that the startup’s goal is not to participate in price wars but to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), a milestone that surpasses human performance in various tasks. With DeepSeek’s rising influence, Alibaba and other tech giants are responding quickly, highlighting the intensifying race to dominate China’s rapidly expanding AI sector.
