On Tuesday, the Chinese internet behemoth Alibaba Group (9988.HK) unveiled Qwen 3, an enhanced version of its flagship AI model that adds new hybrid reasoning features.

Due to the breakthrough success of a local business called DeepSeek a few months ago, which claimed to have created high-performing models at a lesser cost than their Western counterparts, competition in China’s AI market is getting more intense.

Alibaba claims that Qwen3 models are “hybrid” in that they can either respond rapidly to basic requests or take their time and “reason” through more complicated issues. Though at the expense of increased latency, reasoning allows the models to successfully fact-check themselves, much as OpenAi‘s o3.

In the report given by the Qwen team, with the launch of its Ernie 4.5 Turbo and reasoning-focused Ernie X1 Turbo products last Friday, Chinese search giant Baidu (9888.HK) launched a new tab and entered the AI arms race.
Alibaba claims to have created a more flexible and effective platform for software and app developers with its latest version, which combines traditional AI features with sophisticated dynamic reasoning. Days following DeepSeek’s launch in late January, the e-commerce behemoth had hurriedly released its Qwen 2.5-Max model, boasting better performance.