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Alibaba has started building “Qianwen”an AI assistant built on Qwen, backed by $52B of infrastructure to compete with ChatGPT’s agentic AI.
Alibaba quietly launched a project codenamed “Qwen”to build a consumer facing personal AI assistant app, based on the strongest Qwen models, aiming at ChatGPT class experiences and signaling a change beyond Alibaba’s recent emphasis on enterprise AI. Qwen is framed as a “future of AI” battle by senior leadership, and they plan to leverage Qwen’s open source momentum to compete internationally.
The move comes after Alibaba outlined a Y=380 billion (about $53 billion) three-year investment in AI infrastructure–including data centers and accelerated compute–and weeks after its Quark unit began rolling out a dialogue assistant and AI glasses, part of an internal “C Plan” to expand consumer AI across devices (with eventual PC support). Alibaba has been focusing on B2B APIs via Alibaba Cloud. Qwen is a new push into the consumer market.
Alibaba is yet to announce a release date for the Qwen application, nor has it provided any information on pricing or international availability. The company’s positioning indicates that it will try to combine large-model capabilities with a multiterminal ecosystem. Qwen-powered Assistants will be brought to phones, PCs, wearables, and other devices as part of a larger C-end strategy.
