Alibaba Cloud Unveils Latest AI Models, ToolsAand Infrastructure Available

Alibaba Cloud has unveiled an expanded suite of large language models and AI development tools, upgraded infrastructure offerings, and new support programs for global developers at its annual developer summit today.

These advancements aim to empower developers worldwide to build innovative AI applications more cost-effectively and drive a thriving global generative AI community.

"Alibaba Cloud is committed to delivering real value to global developers through cutting-edge AI models, enhanced cloud infrastructure, and accessible support programs," said Dongliang Guo, Vice President of International Business, Head of International Products and Solutions, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. "Together, we aim to spark more AI-driven innovations, benefiting startups, enterprises, and industries altogether across the globe."

The latest Qwen models, Alibaba Cloud’s proprietary large language model family, including Qwen2.5 series with sizes ranging from 7billion to 72billion parameters, are now accessible via APIs on its generative AI development platform, Model Studio, for global developers to use. Additionally, multimodal AI models including vision understanding models such as Qwen-VL series, visual generation model Wanx2.1 (also known as Tongyi Wanxiang), and audio language model Qwen-Audio are also available for developers to access.

Developers can also leverage Tongyi Lingma, Alibaba Cloud’s proprietary AI coding assistant powered by the Qwen 2.5-coder model. The AI Programmer offers features such as code completion and optimisation, debugging assistance, code snippet search and batch unit test generation. It provides developers with an efficient and seamless coding experience, significantly enhancing productivity and creativity.

In addition to a broader range of models, a slew of new AI development tools is also accessible by global developers on Model Studio. These tools include Workflow, which breaks down complex tasks into subtasks to enhance workflow control, and Agent, which supports multi-agent collaboration for planning and execution tasks. Other tools such as RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), which helps enhance the accuracy and reliability of generative AI models with external sources; Batch Reasoning, which generates responses simultaneously with multiple prompt inputs; AutoEval (Automated Model Evaluation), as well as model deployment and application observability services will be available by end of this month.

In order to provide robust computing to facilitate AI and other critical workloads, Alibaba Cloud revealed that its 9th Generation Enterprise Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance will be available in global markets starting April this year. The latest generation of ECS instances has notable performance enhancements compared to its previous iteration, including a 20% increase in computing efficiency. Additionally, by accelerating networks through eRDMA (elastic Remote Direct Memory Access), its performance in supporting high-performance computing, search recommendations, and Redis databases can be further improved by up to 50%.

The cloud pioneer has also announced its innovative Alibaba Cloud Container Compute Service (ACS) is now available for international customers starting from January 2025. Designed for simplified and optimised workload deployment using container technology, the ACS integrates container services with underlying cloud computing resources, significantly reducing costs and technical complexity and enabling developers to focus on innovation rather than infrastructure management.

To foster innovation, Alibaba Cloud introduced the Alibaba Cloud GenAI Empowerment Program, a dedicated support program for global developers and startups leveraging its Qwen models to build generative AI applications. Participants in the program can gain support including free cloud credits, training workshops, invitation to tech shows and demo days, as well as product co-marketing opportunities. This program is designed to help developers and startups accelerate their generative AI projects while connecting with a broader ecosystem of innovators.

Axcxept, a Japanese company specialising in AI products such as voice assistants, has developed an open-source, lightweight AI model called EZO based on Qwen 2.5 LLM. The EZO model outperforms state-of-the-art (SOTA) models in areas such as coding, information extraction, math, reasoning, roleplay, and writing in Japanese. With low latency and robust performance, EZO is tailored to serve industries such as healthcare and public institutions in Japan, ensuring secure and efficient AI applications.

OxValue.AI, a deep-tech venture from the University of Oxford, uses Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen-based multimodal AI models for AI-driven company valuation services. By processing and analysing text and audio data related to financing, R&D, and operations, OxValue achieves precise and cost-efficient valuation assessments tailored to corporate clients.

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