Alibaba Debuts Upgraded Qwen 3 AI that It Claims to Outperform DeepSeek R1
TMTPOST -- Alibaba Group unveiled Qwen 3 on Tuesday, a next-generation upgrade of its flagship AI model featuring enhanced hybrid reasoning capabilities. Qwen3-235B-A22B, features 235 billion parameters but requires activating only 22 billion — roughly one-third the parameter size of DeepSeek-R1. This design dramatically cuts operating costs while achieving performance that surpasses leading models such as DeepSeek-R1 and OpenAI-o1, making it the most powerful open-source model available globally. The announcement comes as China’s AI landscape heats up, driven by the rapid rise of local startup DeepSeek, which earlier this year claimed to deliver high-performing models at lower costs compared to Western rivals. Baidu, China’s top search engine, also stepped up its efforts last Friday by la