Days after Kimi K3, Alibaba releases Qwen 3.8 Max as Chinas AI race intensifies.

Chinese technology giant Alibaba has introduced Qwen 3.8 Max (Preview), its latest flagship artificial intelligence (AI) model. The launch comes just a few days after Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI released its Kimi K3 model, highlighting the rapidly growing competition among China's AI companies. Qwen 3.8 Max is a multimodal AI model, meaning it can understand and process text, images, videos, and documents together. Alibaba says the model uses a Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture with around 2.4 trillion parameters, making it one of the company's most advanced AI systems to date. The preview version is currently available for testing, with broader developer access expected later. The announcement follows the release of Kimi K3, which has approximately 2.8 trillion parameters and is currently one of the world's largest open-source AI models.

The close timing of both launches shows how Chinese AI companies are racing to develop more capable models that can compete with leading systems from global firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Industry analysts believe the competition in China's AI sector is becoming more intense, with companies investing heavily in large language models and open-source AI technologies. The rapid pace of innovation is expected to strengthen China's position in the global AI market while increasing competition with major international AI developers.