New Chinese model reports highlight DeepSeek and Qwen as growing forces in open-source AI competition.

Chinese AI models from DeepSeek, Qwen, and Moonshot are cheaper, more adaptable, and nearly as capable as leading US platforms, raising competitive concerns.

Alibaba unveiled Qwen3.5-Max-Preview, the flagship of its Qwen 3.5 series, which debuted as the top Chinese model on LMArena at 15th place globally, trailing Anthropic and Google, while ranking fifth in mathematics — as the company targets $100 billion in annual cloud and AI revenue within five years.