Alibaba Launches Rival To DeepSeek, Sees Stock Surge

Chinese tech giant Alibaba has unveiled its latest artificial intelligence (AI) reasoning model, claiming that its capabilities surpass those of rival models from OpenAI and startup DeepSeek, John Liu and Anna Cooban reported for CNN.

Alibaba’s new AI model was launched just one day after another Chinese company introduced a “general AI agent” called Manus. I Photo: Alibaba Group

The announcement sent Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares soaring 8% by the end of the day, contributing to gains in the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index. Alibaba’s new AI model was launched just one day after another Chinese company introduced a “general AI agent” called Manus.

According to a video on Manus’s website, the software can perform complex, multi-step tasks, such as screening résumés and creating websites. Reuters reported that Manus was developed by the Chinese company Monica.

The video also claims that Manus is more advanced than a traditional chatbot because it not only generates ideas but also delivers tangible results, such as producing reports recommending real estate investments based on specific criteria.

In an online statement, Alibaba touted its new model, QwQ-32B, as delivering “exceptional performance, almost entirely surpassing OpenAI-o1-mini and rivaling the strongest open-source reasoning model, DeepSeek-R1.”

OpenAI-o1-mini is the cost-efficient reasoning model released last year by the American company OpenAI. Alibaba added that QwQ-32B has achieved a “qualitative leap in mathematics, coding, and general capabilities, with overall performance on par with DeepSeek-R1.”