Alibaba's Qwen AI crosses 3 billion downloads, outselling rivals

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. announced that its Qwen family of artificial intelligence models has surpassed 3 billion global downloads, establishing it as the most widely used open-weight AI model family in the world. The milestone, reported by the Chinese technology giant on August 15, 2026, places Qwen ahead of major U.S. competitors including models from Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google.

The claim is based on Alibaba's own data and is supported by a report from the open-source AI hub Hugging Face, which published its State of Open Models on August 14. According to Hugging Face metrics, Qwen accumulated 2.045 billion downloads within its platform during 2026. Google's models registered 418 million downloads on the platform, while Meta's garnered 227 million. Alibaba stated that its 3 billion figure accounts for activity across all distribution channels, including its own ModelScope platform, which is not captured by Hugging Face's count. The difference in numbers does not alter the rankings, as Qwen maintains a substantial lead.

The download surge reflects a broader strategy of volume and reach. Alibaba has open-sourced more than 460 models under permissive...