Chinese tech company Alibaba released its Qwen 3, a family of AI models on Monday.
Most models can be downloaded under the “open” license to embrace Face and Github from AI Dev Platform. The size ranges from 0.6 billion to 235 billion parameters. Parameters roughly correspond to the model’s problem-solving skills, and models with more parameters generally perform better than those with fewer parameters.
The rise of Chinese-originated model series like Qwen has increased pressure on American labs such as Openai, providing more capable AI technology. They also led policymakers to implement restrictions aimed at limiting the ability of Chinese AI companies to obtain the chips needed to train models.
Introducing QWEN3!
Released QWEN3, the latest large-scale language model, which includes two MOE models and six dense models ranging from 0.6B to 235B and open weight QWEN3. The flagship model QWEN3-235B-A22B achieves competitive results with benchmark assessments on coding, mathematics, general…pic.twitter.com/jwzkjehwhc
– Qwen (@alibaba_qwen) April 28, 2025
According to Alibaba, the Qwen 3 model is a “hybrid” model in the sense that it allows you to spend time on “reasons” and respond quickly to simpler requests via complex problems. Inference allows models to effectively fact-check the model, similar to models such as OpenAI’s O3, at the expense of higher latency.
“The seamless integration of thought and non-think modes gives users the flexibility to control their thinking budget,” the Qwen team wrote in a blog post. “This design makes it easier for users to configure task-specific budgets.”
Some models also employ a mixture of more computationally efficient expert (MOE) architectures to answer queries. Moe breaks down tasks into subtasks and delegates them to a smaller, specialized “expert” model.
The Qwen 3 model supports 119 languages and was trained on a dataset of nearly 36 trillion tokens, according to Alibaba. A token is the raw bits of data that the model processes. One million tokens amount to about 750,000 words. Alibaba says that Qwen 3 was trained with a combination of textbooks, “question answer pairs,” code snippets, AI generated data, and more.
These improvements, along with others, have significantly improved the functionality of the Qwen 3 compared to its predecessor, the Qwen 2. All three Qwen models are less head and shoulder than the latest recent models like Openai’s O3 and O4-Mini, but they are still powerful performers.
Programming contest platform CodeForces will beat the largest three QWEN models, the QWEN-3-235B-A22B- Openai’s O3-Mini and Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro. QWen-3-235B-A22B bests O3-MINI with the latest version of AIME, a challenging mathematics benchmark, a test to assess the ability of a model on a problem.
However, Qwen-3-235B-A22B is not available, but at least it is not available yet.
The largest public QWEN three models, the QWEN3-32B remains competitive with many unique and open AI models, including the R1 from the Chinese AI Lab Deepseek. The QWEN3-32B outperforms Openai’s O1 model in several tests, including the coding benchmark LiveCodebench.
Alibaba says that Qwen 3 is not only “good” in its ability to invoke tools, but also follows the instructions and copies certain data formats. In addition to the downloadable model, the Qwen 3 is available from cloud providers such as Fireworks AI and Hyperbola.
Tuhin Srivastava, co-founder and CEO of AI Cloud Host Baseten, said the Qwen 3 is another point in the trendline for open models that maintain pace with closed source systems such as Openai.
“The US has doubled the limit on sales of chips to China and purchases from China, but models like cutting edge and open (…) will definitely be used domestically,” he told TechCrunch. “It reflects the reality that companies are buying their own tools from the shelves through closed model companies like humanity and open.”