Alibaba unveils its most capable AI model to date, not far behind Moonshot's in size
Alibaba has launched its most powerful AI model, Qwen3.8-Max, featuring 2.4 trillion parameters. The model is designed to compete with domestic rival Moonshot AI and performs strongly on global benchmarks for text and visual analysis.
Why it matters
The release underscores the intense competition among Chinese tech firms to lead in generative AI development and the importance of parameter counts in the global AI race.
China’s Alibaba on Monday unveiled what it said is its largest and most capable artificial-intelligence model, the Qwen3.8-Max, which is not far behind in size when compared with an offering from domestic rival Moonshot AI launched last month.
Chinese tech companies — a huge force in open-weight AI models globally — are locked in a fierce and fast-moving battle to build more powerful systems without making them prohibitively expensive to run.
Qwen3.8-Max has 2.4 trillion parameters, the numerical settings a model learns from data and uses to recognise patterns, generate answers, and carry out tasks. Moonshot’s Kimi K3 has 2.8 trillion parameters.
A higher figure does not automatically make a model better, but it has become a closely watched measure of the scale of the computing and data behind advanced AI systems.
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