Alibaba Preparing for Flagship AI Model Release as Soon as April

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is planning to release Qwen 3, an upgraded version of its flagship AI model, as soon as this month with competition from rivals including OpenAI and DeepSeek heating up.

The Hangzhou-based company’s new offering may arrive later in April, though the exact timing could still slip, a person familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The Chinese media outlet Huxiu earlier reported about Alibaba’s plans.

Alibaba has been releasing AI products at a frenetic pace since going all-in on the technology this year. The ecommerce and cloud computing ...