Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. announced on Monday the launch of its latest artificial intelligence model, Qwen3.5, a next-generation system designed to perform complex tasks autonomously, marking a key milestone in China’s rapidly evolving AI landscape. The company described the model as built for the emerging “agentic AI era,” in which artificial intelligence systems are expected to not only respond to queries but also plan, reason, and act with minimal human oversight.
According to Alibaba, Qwen3.5 represents a major improvement over its predecessors, delivering enhanced efficiency and operational performance. The company stated that the model is approximately 60 per cent cheaper to run and can handle eight times the workload of previous iterations. It is also designed to operate across more than 200 languages and dialects, expanding its utility for both enterprise and consumer applications. Alibaba emphasised that the model can process multimodal inputs, including text, images, and video, enabling it to carry out tasks that require integrating information from multiple sources.
“The launch of Qwen3.5 is a significant step forward for Alibaba and for the broader AI community in China,” said an Alibaba spokesperson. “This model is not just about answering questions. It is about enabling AI to act as an agent to execute complex workflows, understand context, and perform tasks independently.”
The technical foundation of Qwen3.5 relies on a sparse mixture-of-experts architecture. While the model contains hundreds of billions of parameters, only a subset is activated during any operation. This design balances high computational capacity with efficiency, allowing the model to deliver robust performance without excessive resource consumption. Expanded context windows, reportedly up to one million tokens in certain configurations, enable the system to handle long documents, extended conversations, and multi-step reasoning tasks.
Alibaba highlighted the model’s “visual agentic capabilities,” which enable it to interact with applications across devices, navigate user interfaces, and perform actions autonomously. These features position Qwen3.5 as a tool that not only provides information but also completes tasks and workflows, moving beyond traditional chatbot functionality. The model is intended for use across enterprise solutions, research environments, and consumer-facing applications.
The launch of Qwen3.5 comes at a time of intense competition in China’s AI industry. Rival companies, including ByteDance and emerging startups like DeepSeek, are also developing advanced AI systems with similar agentic capabilities. ByteDance recently introduced its Doubao 2.0 model, designed for multi-step task execution and autonomous operations. The rapid development of such systems reflects a broader trend in the Chinese technology sector, where AI developers are racing to deliver tools that can operate independently while maintaining high accuracy and efficiency.
Industry analysts say the introduction of Qwen3.5 represents a turning point in China’s AI development strategy. “We are witnessing a shift from large language models that primarily respond to prompts to AI agents capable of reasoning, acting, and optimising on their own,” said Li Wei, a technology analyst based in Beijing. “Models like Qwen3.5 show that Chinese companies are focusing on creating systems that can perform complex, multi-step tasks, which is the next frontier in AI.”
Alibaba has invested heavily in growing the user base of its AI platforms. The company reported significant increases in active users of its Qwen chatbot platform following incentive campaigns designed to boost adoption. These efforts have laid the groundwork for broader deployment of Qwen3.5 across cloud services, enterprise tools, and consumer applications.
The strategic significance of Qwen3.5 extends beyond domestic competition. Chinese AI developers are increasingly seeking to compete with Western counterparts, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, not only in model capabilities but also in accessibility and integration into real-world applications. Analysts note that Qwen3.5’s combination of scale, efficiency, and autonomous functionality could position Alibaba as a major player in the global AI market.
“The launch of Qwen3.5 demonstrates China’s growing ambition in the field of artificial intelligence,” said Zhang Rui, an independent AI researcher. “It is not just about building bigger models; it is about creating AI systems that can operate independently, understand context, and execute complex tasks, which have wide-ranging implications for businesses and society.”
Alibaba plans to roll out Qwen3.5 through its cloud platform, developer interfaces, and chatbot applications in the coming months. Observers will be closely watching how the model performs in real-world environments, its adoption among enterprise customers, and how it compares with emerging domestic and international AI systems. The release underscores the intensifying race in China to lead the development of next-generation AI agents, with potential implications for automation, software development, and user-focused digital services worldwide.
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