Alibaba unveils new AI model QwQ-32B: Does it outperform the competition?

Chinese tech giant Alibaba on Thursday unveiled its latest artificial intelligence model for inference, QwQ-32B, claiming its capabilities surpass rival models from both OpenAI and startup DeepSeek.

The news immediately boosted Alibaba $BABAshares on the Hong Kong stock exchange, where they closed the day 8% higher, and also contributed to a rise in the Hang Seng China Enterprises index.

AI competition is gaining momentum

The launch of Alibaba's new model came just a day after the introduction of a "generic AI agent" called Manus from another Chinese company, Monica. According to a video on a website dedicated to Manus, the software handles complex multi-step tasks such as sorting resumes or creating websites. The creators of Manus say it is not just a chatbot, but a system capable of producing specific outputs, such as property recommendations based on specified criteria.

Alibaba said in a statement that its QwQ-32B model offers "exceptional performance that almost completely outperforms…