Alibaba just dropped a bold AI model, QwQ-32B, to rival OpenAI’s cost-efficient model and go toe-to-toe with DeepSeek’s powerhouse R1.
Investors ate it up. Alibaba’s Hong Kong shares jumped 8%, pushing the stock to a 52-week high.
Why the hype? Alibaba says QwQ-32B punches above its weight, delivering top-tier performance.
It achieves this with way fewer parameters than DeepSeek’s 671-billion-beast R1.
Translation? Smarter, leaner, and cheaper AI.
The announcement comes as China doubles down on AI dominance.
Alibaba enters the AI showdown
Alibaba pledged a whopping $52.4 billion in AI and cloud investment over the next three years—more than it spent in the past decade.
Meanwhile, Dan Newman, CEO of Futurum Group, says AI is shifting from a training race to an efficiency game.
“The pace of innovation is incredibly fast. When DeepSeek launched, it made everyone question if OpenAI was the final boss.”
So, is QwQ-32B the next AI champion? Or just another player in an increasingly crowded ring?
Either way, the AI wars are heating up, and Alibaba just threw a serious punch.
