STORY: The artificial intelligence race ramped up a notch this week and shows no signs of slowing down.
Alibaba has released an AI model it claims surpasses the highly-acclaimed DeepSeek-V3.
The Chinese tech giant announced a new version of its Qwen 2.5 AI model on Wednesday.
The timing of the release is unusual as it lands on the first day of the Lunar New Year, when most Chinese people are off work and with their families.
It could point to the pressure Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has placed on both overseas rivals and local competition.
Alibaba said its latest version of Qwen outperforms DeepSeek, OpenAI and Meta’s most advanced open-source AI models.
This month’s release of DeepSeek’s AI assistant has shocked Silicon Valley and caused tech shares to plunge.
The firm’s supposed low development and usage costs led investors to question huge spending plans by leading AI firms in the U.S.
But DeepSeek’s success has also led to a scramble among its domestic competitors to upgrade their own AI models.
The predecessor of DeepSeek’s V3 model sparked an AI model price war in China after it was released last May.
It led to Alibaba’s cloud unit announcing price cuts of up to 97% on a range of models.
Other Chinese tech companies followed suit, including Baidu and Tencent.