China’s Alibaba launches over 100 new open-source AI models, releases text-to-video generation tool
The Alibaba office building is seen in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China, Aug 28, 2024.
CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images
Alibaba on Thursday released more than 100 open-source artificial intelligence models and boosted the capabilities of its proprietary technology as it looks to ramp up competition with rivals.
The newly-released models, known as Qwen 2.5, are designed for use in applications and sectors ranging from automobiles to gaming and science research, Alibaba said. They have more advanced capabilities in math and coding, it added.
The Hangzhou-headquartered firm is looking to increase competition with domestic rivals such as Baidu and Huawei, as well as U.S. titans like Microsoft and OpenAI.
AI models are trained on huge amounts of data. Alibaba says its models have the abiltiy to understand prompts and generate texts and images.
Open-source means that anyone — including researchers, academics and companies — around the world can use the models to create their own generative AI apps without needing to train their own systems, saving time and expense. By open sourcing the models, Alibaba hopes more users will use its AI.
The Chinese e-commerce giant first launched its Tongyi Qianwen, or Qwen, model last year. Since then, it has released improved versions and says that, to date, its open source models have been downloaded 40 million times.
The company also said that it upgraded its proprietary flagship model called Qwen-Max, which is not open-source. Instead, Alibaba sells its capabilites through its cloud computing products to businesses. Alibaba said that Qwen Max 2.5-Max surpassed rivals such as Meta‘s Llama and OpenAI’s GPT4 in several areas inclduing reasoning and language comprehension.
Alibaba also launched a new text-to-video tool based on its AI models. This allows users to input a prompt and the AI will create a video based on it. This is similar to OpenAI’s Sora.
“Alibaba Cloud is investing, with unprecedented intensity, in the research and development of AI technology and the building of its global infrastructure,” Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba, said in a statement.
Wu, who took over the role of CEO at Alibaba last year amid a historic reshuffle, has been trying to reinvigorate growth at the tech giant, as it faces headwinds including rising competition and a sluggish Chinese consumer.
Alibaba is one of the biggest cloud computing players in China, but internationally, it trails the likes of Amazon and Microsoft. The company is hoping that its latest AI offerings may tempt customers inside and outside of China to sign up to its cloud services, boosting a division which has been sluggish but showed early sign of an acceleration in the June quarter.
Oracle stock dipped about 5% on Wednesday following a report that discussions with Blue Owl Capital on backing a $10 billion data center in Michigan had stalled, although the cloud company later disputed the report.
Blue Owl had been in talks with Oracle about funding a 1-gigawatt facility for OpenAI in Saline Township, Michigan, according to the Financial Times.
However, the plans fell through due to concerns about Oracle’s rising debt levels and extensive artificial intelligence spending, the FT reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
This comes as some investors raise red flags about the funding behind the rush to build ever more data centers.
The concern is that some hyperscalers are turning to private equity markets rather than funding the buildings themselves, and entering into lease agreements that could prove risky.
Blue Owl did look into the project, but pulled out due to unfavorable debt terms and the structure of repayments, according to a person familiar with the company’s plans who asked not to be named in order to discuss a confidential matter.
Blue Owl is still involved in two other Oracle sites, the person said.
The person added that Blue Owl was also concerned that local politics in Michigan would cause construction delays.
Oracle later responded to the FT report, saying the project was moving forward and that Blue Owl was not part of equity talks.
“Our development partner, Related Digital, selected the best equity partner from a competitive group of options, which in this instance was not Blue Owl. Final negotiations for their equity deal are moving forward on schedule and according to plan,” Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said in a statement.
The cloud company did not name the firm involved in current equity talks for the project.
CNBC has reached out to the FT for comment.
The FT said that Blackstone is in discussions to potentially replace Blue Owl Capital as a financial partner for the data center, although no deal has been signed yet.
Blue Owl Capital has been the primary investor in Oracle’s data center projects in the U.S., including a $15 billion center in Abilene, Texas, and an $18 billion site in New Mexico, the FT said.
“This appears to be a case where the deal simply wasn’t the right one, and seasoned investors understand that success does not require winning every transaction,” Evercore ISI analysts wrote in a note on Wednesday.
The bank added that digital infrastructure remains a “core growth vertical” for the Blue Owl, noting an upcoming digital infrastructure fund in 2026 that would add to its $7 billion fund announced in May.
Oracle has $248 billion in lease commitments for data centers and cloud capacity commitments over the next 15 to 19 years as of Nov. 30, the company said in its latest quarterly filing. That is up almost 148% from August.
In September, the cloud computing giant raised $18 billion in new debt, according to an SEC filing. That same month, OpenAI announced a $300 billion partnership with Oracle over the next five years.
By the end of November, the company owed over $124 billion, including operating lease liabilities, according to the filing.
Oracle shares are down about 50% from the high of $345.72 reached in September.
Read the full FT story here.
Year-to-date Oracle stock chart.
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