Alibaba unveils upgraded AI model challenging DeepSeek’s rapid rise

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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has launched a new version of its artificial intelligence model, Qwen 2.5-Max, claiming it surpasses leading competitors, including its domestic rival DeepSeek, which has been making waves in the AI sector.

Announced on Wednesday via Alibaba Cloud’s official account on the Chinese social network WeChat, the company asserts that Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms “almost across all criteria” some of the most advanced AI models available, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, DeepSeek-V3, and Meta’s Llama 3.1.

The timing of Alibaba’s announcement, coinciding with the first day of the Chinese New Year, underscores the growing competition in China’s AI market. The rapid emergence of DeepSeek has placed significant pressure on established tech giants.

DeepSeek stunned Wall Street on January 10 by unveiling its AI assistant DeepSeek-V3, followed by the release of its R1 model on January 20. The model’s low development and operational costs led to a drop in the stock prices of major American AI companies, signaling its disruptive potential in the industry.

On Monday, DeepSeek became the most downloaded free app on Apple’s App Store in both China and the United States, surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the U.S. market. The milestone highlighted DeepSeek’s rapid adoption and increasing global footprint.

In response to DeepSeek’s momentum, other Chinese tech giants have acted swiftly. ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, updated its own AI model just two days after the launch of DeepSeek-R1. ByteDance claimed that its updated model outperforms OpenAI’s o1 model on the AIME benchmark, which assesses AI’s ability to understand and execute complex instructions.

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