Alibaba launches Qwen3.8 Max, says second after Fable 5

On July 19, Chinese technology giant Alibaba Group unveiled a preview of its latest artificial intelligence model, Qwen3.8 Max, claiming it is the world’s second most capable AI system, trailing only Anthropic’s Fable 5. The release intensifies the global AI race, showcasing rapid progress from Chinese labs and setting the stage for increased competition with leading U.S. companies.

The new model contains 2.4 trillion parameters, a measure of its scale and complexity. Alibaba asserts that Qwen3.8 Max represents a significant upgrade over its predecessor, Qwen3.7 Max, particularly excelling in advanced reasoning, coding proficiency, and handling complex productivity tasks like full-stack software development, data analysis, and office workflows. The company has also described it as its first multimodal model with over a trillion parameters capable of processing images, videos, and documents. Developers can currently test the system through Alibaba’s Cloud Model Studio, Qwen Chat, and its coding platforms Qoder and QoderWork via a discounted Token Plan.

Alibaba’s announcement came just days after Beijing-based competitor Moonshot AI revealed its own high-performance model, Kimi...