Alibaba Debuts Qwen 2.5-Max AI Model That ‘Outperforms’ DeepSeek

Ecommerce giant Alibaba has hurriedly released Qwen 2.5-Max as it seeks to remain relevant in a rapidly changing industry.

It claims this upgraded model outperforms the likes of ChatGPT, DeepSeek and Meta’s Llama “almost across the board.”

All of this comes as the arrival of DeepSeek, which has been created using cheaper chips and was reportedly built for less than $6 million, continues to wreak havoc among more established competitors.

Nvidia saw almost $600 billion wiped off its market capitalization after DeepSeek raced to the top of Apple’s App Store—the biggest single-day drop in Wall Street history.

Alibaba’s decision to launch Qwen 2.5-Max during the Lunar New Year celebrations underlines how Chinese tech firms are also under pressure.

The company’s tests claim that it secured a top score of 89.4 in the Arena-Hard benchmark, which compares AI models based on how they respond to human prompts.

When it comes to the MMLU-Pro benchmark, which examines whether an AI model can problem solve at college level, Alibaba’s testing suggests Qwen 2.5-Max beat DeepSeek and was comparable with ChatGPT.

“This endeavor holds the promise of enabling our models to transcend human intelligence, unlocking the potential to explore uncharted territories of knowledge and understanding,” developers said on GitHub.

President Donald Trump says the powerful performance of Chinese AI models should serve as a “wake-up call” to Silicon Valley—but told the Congressional Institute he sees the likes of DeepSeek as an opportunity rather than a threat, because it can drive costs down.

But there are wider concerns to take into account, especially when it comes to censorship. When asked about the Tiananmen Square massacre, or whether Chinese President Xi Jinping has ever made a mistake, users have noted that DeepSeek refuses to provide answers.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.