Alibaba releases 2.4-trillion-parameter open model Qwen 3.8

Alibaba unveiled Qwen 3.8, a 2.4 trillion parameter multimodal open-weight model. The Qwen team says it rivals leading models and trails only Anthropic's Claude Fable 5. A preview is available now.

Why it matters: This extends the rapid cadence of massive open-weight releases from Chinese labs, coming right after Moonshot's 2.8-trillion-parameter Kimi K3, and intensifies competition with Western closed models on both scale and claimed benchmark parity. If independent evaluations bear out the claim, it narrows the gap between open and closed frontier models faster than expected, adding pricing pressure on closed-model providers and raising the stakes in the broader US-China AI race also visible in recent chip-export and governance stories.