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Alibaba launches Qwen3.5 AI model, aims to lead ‘agentic AI era’
Qwen3.5 is reportedly 60% cheaper to operate and eight times faster at handling large workloads
Alibaba unveiled its new artificial intelligence (AI) model, Qwen3.5, on Monday, positioning it as a next-generation tool for executing complex tasks independently.
The company claims the model delivers significant performance improvements and cost efficiencies, outperforming several major US rival models on published benchmarks.
Qwen3.5 is reportedly 60% cheaper to operate and eight times faster at handling large workloads compared to its predecessor, while adding “visual agentic capabilities” that allow the AI to independently take actions across mobile and desktop apps.
Alibaba described the model as “built for the agentic AI era,” designed to help developers and enterprises accomplish more with less computational cost.
The announcement comes amid growing competition in China’s AI landscape, dominated by ByteDance’s Doubao and rising startup DeepSeek.
Alibaba aims to expand the user base of its Qwen chatbot app following recent campaigns that drove a seven-fold increase in active users.
Although Alibaba did not mention DeepSeek in its release, Qwen3.5 benchmarks highlighted its superiority over previous iterations and rival US models, including GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5, and Gemini 3 Pro.
Industry observers are now anticipating DeepSeek’s upcoming next-generation model.