Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. shares rose as much as 5.4% after the Chinese tech giant launched a preview version of its flagship Qwen3.8 Max model, which it described as second only to Anthropic’s Fable 5.
The Qwen3.8 Max has 2.4 trillion parameters, placing it in the heavyweight class alongside Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3, which boasts 2.8 trillion parameters. The release comes amid intensifying competition in China’s AI sector, with Moonshot AI’s recent unveiling of K3 roiling markets and triggering concern in the US about China closing the gap on global leaders like Anthropic and OpenAI.
Alibaba’s Sunday release of the preview version signals the company’s ambition to compete at the frontier of AI model development. The model’s parameter count places it among the largest publicly disclosed AI systems, though Alibaba has not yet released full benchmark comparisons against competing models.
The announcement adds to a flurry of AI activity from Chinese tech firms, as companies race to develop models that can match or exceed Western counterparts in capability.
