Alibaba Says Its 'Qwen' Large Language AI Models Have 90,000 Enterprise Clients

By Tracy Qu

Alibaba Group's large language models have attracted more than 90,000 business users, potentially giving the Chinese ecommerce giant a boost in efforts to reverse slowing growth in its cloud-computing arm.

Alibaba Cloud said Thursday that enterprise users of Qwen, its family of large language models, have been rising quickly since it first introduced the technology in China a year ago.

It said users range from Xiaomi, which has integrated the LLM into an AI assistant for its smartphones and vehicles, to Perfect World Games, which uses Qwen for video games' audio and animation generation.

Alibaba competes in the generative AI sphere in China with Tencent's Hunyuan and Baidu's Ernie Bot. Baidu said last month that Ernie Bot has more than 85,000 enterprise clients.

Alibaba has also invested in AI start-ups such as Moonshot AI, whose Kimi generative AI model has attracted funding from the likes of HongShan, formerly Sequoia China.

Alibaba Cloud rolled out its Qwen model to testers in April 2023 and made it available for public use in September. Thursday marked the first time the company had released enterprise user numbers for the technology.

Beijing has approved dozens of generative AI models since the release of rules last year, requiring models to be vetted by Chinese regulators. No models made by foreign developers have been approved yet.

Alibaba shares closed 0.85% higher at HK$76.80.

Write to Tracy Qu at tracy.qu@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 09, 2024 07:09 ET (11:09 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.