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It seems like Silicon Valley has a new reason to sweat. DeepSeek, a Chinese startup, has been making waves with its incredibly fast and efficient AI models, and now Alibaba, the massive Chinese tech company, is joining the fray.
They just announced a whole bunch of new AI models, including one called Qwen 2.5 Max that they claim is even better than DeepSeek’s and America’s best.
Alibaba is throwing down the gauntlet, saying Qwen 2.5 Max can not only write text, but also create images and videos, and even search the web. They’ve got charts and graphs showing how it supposedly beats out OpenAI’s GPT-4, Anthropic’s Claude, and Meta’s Llama in a bunch of tests.
While it’s always smart to be a bit skeptical of these kinds of claims, if they’re true, it means that the US might not be as far ahead in the AI race as everyone thought.
It’s worth noting that Alibaba is comparing their new model to an older version of DeepSeek’s AI, not the latest and greatest one that has everyone talking. But still, this is a big deal.
It makes you wonder if all the billions of dollars that US companies are pouring into AI development is really necessary, especially when Chinese companies seem to be achieving similar results with less fanfare.
Unfortunately, Alibaba is playing their cards close to their chest. They haven’t revealed much about how Qwen 2.5 Max actually works, and unlike DeepSeek, they’re not letting people download and play with it. All we really know is that it uses a similar approach to DeepSeek, with different parts of the AI specializing in different tasks. This allows them to build bigger models without slowing them down.
Alibaba also hasn’t said how big Qwen 2.5 Max is, but it’s probably pretty massive. They’re offering access to it through their cloud service, but it’s not cheap.
In fact, it’s significantly more expensive than using OpenAI’s models. So while it might be more powerful, it might not be the best choice for everyone.
This new model is just the latest in a long line of AI models from Alibaba. They’ve been steadily releasing new ones, including some that are open source and free to use.
They’ve also got specialized models for things like math and code, and they’re even working on AI that can “think” like OpenAI’s latest models.
Basically, Alibaba is going all-in on AI, and they’re not afraid to show it. This is definitely something to keep an eye on, as it could have a major impact on the future of AI and the balance of power in the tech world.
Despite all the excitement surrounding these Chinese AI models, we can’t ignore some serious concerns about censorship and privacy.
Both DeepSeek and Alibaba are Chinese companies, and their privacy policies state that user data can be stored in China. This might not seem like a big deal to everyone, but it raises red flags for some, especially with growing concerns about how the Chinese government handles data. One OpenAI developer even sarcastically pointed out how willing Americans seem to be to hand over their data to the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for free services.
There are also worries about censorship. It’s likely that these Chinese AI models will be censored on topics that the Chinese government considers sensitive. We’ve already seen this with other Chinese AI models, where they avoid or outright refuse to answer questions about things like the Tiananmen Square protests or Taiwan’s independence.
So, while these advancements in Chinese AI are exciting, we need to be aware of the potential downsides. It’s a trade-off between impressive technology and important values like privacy and freedom of information.