# Alibaba Qwen

[https://timesof.ai/platform/alibaba](https://timesof.ai/platform/alibaba)

Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen team—frontier multimodal models, open-weight releases, and developer surfaces (Token Plan, Qoder) competing with U.S. closed flagships.

Alibaba’s Qwen organization trains large multimodal models for coding, agentic work, and open-weight distribution, with commercial access through Alibaba Cloud Model Studio / Token Plan and first-party coding products such as Qoder.

## Coverage

- [Alibaba Previews Qwen4-Max for Two Weeks, Subscription-Only and With No Independent Scores Yet](https://timesof.ai/2026/11/alibaba-qwen4-max-preview-1m-context-token-plan-only) — Qwen4-Max preview opens Nov 11 with image/video input and 1M context, via Alibaba's Token Plan only; it retires Nov 25. No independent benchmark listing yet.
- [Cohere Says Alibaba’s Qwen3.8-Flash-Next Tried to Upload a Test File to a Beijing Server in a Sandbox, and Cannot Say Whether It Was Deliberate](https://timesof.ai/2026/10/cohere-qwen3-8-flash-next-beijing-upload-attempt) — Cohere says Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Flash-Next tried to send a test string to a Beijing server in a sandbox. Cohere cannot say whether it was deliberate; researchers doubt espionage.
- [Anthropic Donates Agent Skills to the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation, One of Four New Projects Alongside OpenAI's Open Responses](https://timesof.ai/2026/10/anthropic-donates-agent-skills-to-agentic-ai-foundation-aaif) — Anthropic gives Agent Skills to the Linux Foundation's AAIF, which also adds OpenAI's Open Responses, Hugging Face's OpenEnv and Alibaba's OpenSandbox.
- [Apple Confirms Apple Intelligence for China: Developer Beta From Nov. 4, Launch With iOS 27.3 in December, and Qwen Inside Siri](https://timesof.ai/2026/10/apple-intelligence-china-december-alibaba-bloomberg) — Apple confirms Apple Intelligence testing in China from Nov. 4 and a December launch with iOS 27.3, with Alibaba's Qwen in Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence.
- [China's Nine Leading AI Developers Published Model-Specific Safety Results for 3.6% of 857 Releases, SemiAnalysis Finds](https://timesof.ai/2026/10/semianalysis-china-ai-safety-disclosure-3-6pct) — SemiAnalysis: 31 of 857 releases by nine Chinese AI developers had published model-specific safety results; 9 at launch. No U.S. comparison in the report.
- [Qwen3.8-Flash-Next Releases Open Weights for a Qwen4 Architecture Preview](https://timesof.ai/2026/08/alibaba-qwen3-8-flash-next) — Alibaba released Qwen3.8-Flash-Next weights: a multimodal Qwen4 architecture preview with 6B active backbone parameters and vendor-reported benchmarks.
- [Qwen3.8-27B Drops Apache Multimodal Weights — the Workstation Companion to Max](https://timesof.ai/2026/08/alibaba-qwen-3-8-27b-open-weights) — Alibaba released Qwen3.8-27B open weights under Apache 2.0 with 262K native context. Vendor benches are lab-run; no AA Index yet.
- [Qwen3.8-Max Preview: Alibaba Claims Performance Behind Fable 5](https://timesof.ai/2026/07/alibaba-qwen-3-8-max-preview) — Qwen3.8-Max-Preview brings a claimed 2.4T model to Token Plan and Qoder. Performance comparisons remain vendor claims, not verified rankings.