Alibaba Cloud rolls out expanded suite of AI models, development tools in overseas push
Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing services and artificial intelligence (AI) arm of Alibaba Group Holding, unveiled an expanded suite of its proprietary large language models (LLMs) and development tools for global developers, as the company intensifies its push into overseas markets.
At its annual developer summit in Indonesia on Tuesday, Hangzhou-based Alibaba Cloud said the latest products under its Tongyi Qianwen family of LLMs, such as the Qwen 2.5 series, as well as multimodal AI models - including the Qwen-VL series and visual generation-focused Tongyi Wanxiang - are now accessible to global developers via application programming interfaces (APIs) on its generative AI (GenAI) development platform, Model Studio. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
LLMs are the technology behind GenAI services like ChatGPT. An API is a set of programming codes that enables developers to sync data between multiple platforms to build application software. APIs help speed up app development by not having to build code from scratch.
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"Alibaba Cloud is committed to delivering real value to global developers through cutting-edge AI models, enhanced cloud infrastructure and accessible support programmes," Guo Dongliang, vice-president of international business and head of international products and solutions at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said at the event.
The company's latest move aligns with its broader strategy to ramp up overseas investments and expand its cloud infrastructure offering in key markets around the world.
Alibaba Cloud launches an expanded suite of large language models and artificial-intelligence development tools at its annual developer summit in Indonesia on January 21, 2025. Photo: Handout alt=Alibaba Cloud launches an expanded suite of large language models and artificial-intelligence development tools at its annual developer summit in Indonesia on January 21, 2025. Photo: Handout>
In December, Alibaba Cloud said it aims to work with 100 ecosystem partners in 2025 to develop and provide cutting-edge AI and cloud-computing solutions for businesses across various industries worldwide.
At its developer summit, the company also played up the wider availability of its Tongyi Lingma programming tool, powered by the Qwen 2.5-coder model. It features an AI Programmer that provides developers with a number of features - such as code completion and optimisation, debugging assistance, code snippet search and batch unit test generation - that are expected to enhance their productivity and creativity.
A slew of new AI development tools have also been made accessible to global developers on Model Studio. These include Workflow, which breaks down complex tasks into subtasks, as well as Agent, which supports multiple collaboration for planning and execution tasks.
Amid new efforts to expand investment in Southeast Asia, South Korea and Mexico, Alibaba Cloud last year closed its data centres in Australia and India, as the company prioritised operations in other markets.
Revenue for the cloud unit, one of Alibaba's most important growth engines, rose 7 per cent to 29.6 billion yuan (US$4 billion) during the September quarter last year. That marked the unit's fastest quarterly growth over the past two years.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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