Alibaba Cloud takes big step in AI development with open-source models

At the annual Apsara conference, Alibaba Cloud made a groundbreaking announcement. The company has made over 100 new AI models, collectively known as Qwen 2.5, available as open-source. This move underscores Alibaba's commitment to advancing AI technology and supporting the developer community.

Renewed infrastructure for AI computing

In addition to the open-source models, Alibaba Cloud unveiled an advanced full-stack infrastructure. It was specifically designed to meet the growing demand for powerful AI computing. The new infrastructure includes innovative cloud products and services that take computing, networking and data center performance to the next level.

Eddie Wu, the top boss of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, emphasized the importance of these developments: “We are doing everything we can to create a future-proof AI infrastructure. In doing so, we want to support our customers worldwide and increase their business opportunities.”

Qwen 2.5: versatile AI models for various applications

The newly launched Qwen 2.5 models come in various sizes, ranging from 0.5 to 72 billion parameters. They excel in improved knowledge and have stronger math and programming skills. With support for over 29 languages, these models are suitable for a wide range of AI applications in various sectors, from the automotive industry to scientific research.

Growing popularity and impact

Since their launch in April 2023, Qwen models have experienced impressive growth. With more than 40 million downloads and the creation of over 50,000 derivative models, they show how much interest there is in open-source AI technology.

Jingren Zhou, technical director at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, commented, “We want to empower developers and businesses of all sizes to take advantage of AI technologies and drive the growth of the open-source community.”

Expanding AI capabilities

Alibaba Cloud has also improved its Qwen-Max flagship model and introduced new multi-modal capabilities. For example, a text-to-video model has been added to the Tongyi Wanxiang family, which can generate high-quality videos in various styles. In addition, there is Qwen2-VL, a model that can understand long videos and answer questions about them.

With these developments and the associated infrastructure improvements, Alibaba Cloud is taking a big step forward in the world of AI. The company thus offers comprehensive support to customers and partners to make the most of the benefits of the latest AI technology.