Alibaba soars after releasing an AI model even more efficient than DeepSeek’s but just as capable
Alibaba surged nearly 4% premarket and is now trading up 2% after releasing a new AI reasoning model after US markets closed yesterday, QwQ-32B, which matches the capabilities of DeepSeek-R1 but uses less compute. Yesterday, Alibaba’s stock jumped 7% after China reaffirmed its commitment to focus on domestic consumption and prioritize retail. Alibaba, of course, is best known for its massive e-commerce business.
The new open-source AI release is the latest volley from a Chinese company that potentially undercuts the idea that AI models necessarily need to get bigger and more expensive to outperform the competition. The proliferation of cheaper, free, and open-source models could put downward pressure on an industry already losing money on its expensive AI investments.
The new open-source AI release is the latest volley from a Chinese company that potentially undercuts the idea that AI models necessarily need to get bigger and more expensive to outperform the competition. The proliferation of cheaper, free, and open-source models could put downward pressure on an industry already losing money on its expensive AI investments.
