Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai said open source was the only viable path to a sustainable AI industry at the opening of the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit in Zhejiang province on 3 November, the South China Morning Post reported. His argument places Alibaba’s Qwen models within China’s push for technological self-reliance amid rivalry with Washington over access to technology.
Tsai said open models could cut research costs for smaller businesses and developing countries. At the summit, which has the backing of China’s Cyberspace Administration and Zhejiang’s provincial government, Premier Li Qiang urged open dialogue on AI and warned against a “digital iron curtain”.
Chinese AI firms DeepSeek and MiniMax secured approval in late October to release and license open-source systems overseas, days after authorities proposed restrictions on AI technology exports. AI Affairs earlier reported on their registration under China’s draft AI export rules.
Alibaba figures put Qwen at more than 470 open-source variants, over 4 billion downloads and more than 330,000 derivative models. Tsai said a Ugandan non-profit had used Qwen to develop a model supporting 68 African languages.
Tsai said Alibaba was using US$25 billion in free cash flow from e-commerce to fund AI infrastructure and model development. He said it had doubled computing capital expenditure each year for the past three years.
