This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) shares gained about 2% on Tuesday after the company detailed its latest artificial intelligence model, Qwen3-Max-Thinking. The reasoning-focused model, part of Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen family, delivered stronger results across key industry benchmarks, highlighting gains in factual accuracy, reasoning, and following instructions.
Alibaba said the improvements stemmed from scaling up model parameters and applying more computing power during training. Qwen3-Max-Thinking also uses tools to access information or run code when needed and spends more time on complex questions, which helps improve answers.
The company compared its model against global AI leaders, including Google’s Gemini (GOOGL), OpenAI, and Anthropic, claiming parity across 19 benchmarks. Tests included GPQA Diamond, LiveCodeBench, and Humanity’s Last Exam.
While Alibaba did not link the update to immediate revenue, it reinforces the company’s push in cloud computing. Alibaba Cloud grew about 34% year over year in the latest quarter, emerging as a key long-term growth driver and reducing the company’s reliance on its core e-commerce operations.
Investors appear optimistic as Alibaba positions itself alongside leading AI developers in an increasingly competitive market.
