Chinese tech giant Alibaba unveiled an upgraded version of its Qwen 2.5 AI model claiming that it surpasses DeepSeek-V3 performance, on Wednesday.
“Qwen 2.5-Max surpasses GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3, and Llama-3.1-405B in nearly all aspects,” Alibaba’s cloud division announced on its official WeChat account.
What makes this launch most noteworthy is its timing which coincides with the first day of the Lunar New Year, a time when most people in China are away from work and celebrating with family.
The unexpected timing of the Qwen 2.5-Max launch coinciding DeepSeek’s rise has not only challenged global competitors but has also intensified competition within China.
DeepSeek’s rapid success has also triggereed Chinese tech firms, prompting them to accelerate AI advancements.
DeepSeek’s AI assistant, powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model, followed by the R1 model has sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley.
The Chinese startup’s claims of lower development and operational costs have led investors to reconsider the massive spending strategies of leading AI companies in the U.S.
Just two days after the debut of widely praised DeepSeek-R1, ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, declared an update to its leading AI model. ByteDance claimed its model outperformed OpenAI’s o1 in AIME, a benchmark assessing AI comprehension and quick response accuracy.
