On April 28, 2025, Alibaba Group revealed Qwen 3, a new family of AI models aimed at enhancing reasoning abilities. These models, ranging from 0.6 billion to 235 billion parameters, seek to rival or outperform top models from Google and OpenAI. Alibaba’s announcement marks a significant step in AI innovation, enabling faster responses and complex problem-solving.
Features and Capabilities
The Qwen 3 series combines rapid response with advanced reasoning skills. Alibaba developed these by training on nearly 36 trillion tokens, including textbooks, question-answer pairs, and code. This extensive dataset helps improve accuracy and problem-solving.
Alibaba describes Qwen 3 as “hybrid” models, which can switch between simple and complex tasks. This allows them to manage time and reasoning effort efficiently, a capability that helps with self-checking facts but may cause some processing delay.
Performance Highlights
- The largest model, Qwen-3-235B-A22B, outperforms OpenAI’s o3-mini on Codeforces, AIME, and BFCL reasoning tests.
- Qwen3-32B, the largest public model, competes well with other AI systems like DeepSeek’s R1 and surpasses OpenAI’s o1 on accuracy benchmarks.
- Qwen 3 supports 119 languages and excels at following instructions and handling specific data formats.
Access and Availability
Most Qwen 3 models are open-licensed and downloadable on AI development platforms such as Hugging Face and GitHub. Cloud access is available via providers like Fireworks AI and Hyperbolic.
This release adds to the rising competition in AI technology, especially between Chinese and American labs, and raises challenges related to technology access and policy. Alibaba’s work reinforces its position as a key player in the global AI landscape.
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