The Kaipher Editorial Team Alibaba unveiled its most advanced artificial intelligence model to date on September 5, 2025, as the Chinese tech giant’s Qwen unit announced the release of Qwen3-Max-Preview featuring over one trillion parameters. The announcement sent Alibaba shares climbing 2.3% as investors reacted positively to the company’s latest stride in the competitive AI landscape.
The new model, formally named Qwen3-Max-Preview (Instruct), is now accessible through Qwen Chat and the Alibaba Cloud API, marking the largest AI model in the company’s portfolio. According to Alibaba, benchmark testing demonstrates that Qwen3-Max-Preview outperforms the company’s previous flagship model, Qwen3-235B-A22B-2507.
Enhanced Capabilities Drive Market Confidence
Internal testing and early user feedback have confirmed the model’s enhanced capabilities, including stronger overall performance, a broader knowledge base, and improved conversational abilities. The company highlighted the model’s advanced proficiency in handling agentic tasks and following instructions, positioning it among the largest publicly announced AI models in the industry.
The trillion-parameter scale places Qwen3-Max-Preview in direct competition with leading AI models from global technology companies. This development comes as major tech firms worldwide continue investing heavily in large language model technology, which powers generative AI applications across various sectors.
Competition Intensifies in Chinese AI Market
The announcement arrives amid intensifying competition in China’s AI sector, where companies are rapidly advancing their capabilities. DeepSeek, a prominent Chinese AI startup, is developing its own next-generation model with enhanced agent features, targeting a release by the end of 2025. The Hangzhou-based company plans to focus on multi-step task execution with minimal user input, directly challenging established players including OpenAI.
Recent analysis shows Chinese AI models now dominate global rankings, with DeepSeek and Alibaba delivering performance that rivals and sometimes surpasses Silicon Valley counterparts. Chinese open-source models, including variants from Kimi K2, MiniMax M1, Qwen 3, and DeepSeek R1, have achieved top positions ahead of models from Google and Meta in university benchmarking platforms.
Analyst Optimism Fuels Stock Rally
The positive market reaction reflects investor confidence in Alibaba’s AI strategy as a key growth driver. Recent analyst reports have reinforced bullish sentiment, with Citi reaffirming its Buy rating and increasing its price target from $148 to $187 following strong cloud growth results. The investment bank noted sustained growth prospects for Alibaba’s Cloud Intelligence Group, which generated $4.66 billion in revenue during the first quarter, representing 26% year-over-year growth.
Mizuho analyst Jason Helfstein also raised his price target to $159 while maintaining an Outperform rating, citing the company’s strong cloud assets and positioning to capitalize on artificial intelligence demand in China. The analyst emphasized that Alibaba possesses “the best Cloud assets in China,” positioning the company to benefit from substantial industry growth ahead.
