Alibaba Cloud unveils model that competes with DeepSeek

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing unit of Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba Group has introduced its latest open-source large language model QwQ-32B, with its performance comparable to leading models such as DeepSeek R1.

The model has only 32 billion parameters, 21 times fewer than the 671 billion parameters of DeepSeek R1, but it has achieved a significant improvement across a variety of benchmarks including mathematical reasoning and coding proficiency.

It has significantly reduced deployment costs, and can be efficiently deployed on consumer-grade hardware, the company said.

Alibaba has integrated AI agent-related capabilities into QwQ-32B, enabling it to think critically, utilize tools effectively and adapt its reasoning based on environmental feedback.

The move came after Alibaba said it will scale up investments in artificial intelligence over the next three years, including infrastructure for AI and cloud computing, and AI foundation models and native applications.

fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn