{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-03-alibaba-qwen3-8-max/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-03-alibaba-qwen3-8-max/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2026-08-03-alibaba-qwen3-8-max","date":"2026-08-03","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Alibaba launches Qwen3.8-Max and open-sources the Qwen3.8 family","deck":null,"takeaway":null,"category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":4,"confidence":"medium","status":{"key":"partly","labels":["Partly confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"Qwen research page","url":"https://qwen.ai/research","type":"official","group":"primary","domain":"qwen.ai"},{"n":2,"title":"Bloomberg: Alibaba adds to China AI breakthroughs with new Qwen model","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-03/alibaba-drops-another-china-ai-model-with-breakthrough-performance","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"bloomberg.com"},{"n":3,"title":"CNBC: Alibaba shares rally after unveiling its most powerful AI model","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/03/alibaba-ai-model-qwen-rival-anthropic.html","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"cnbc.com"},{"n":4,"title":"Quartz: Alibaba launches Qwen3.8-Max","url":"https://qz.com/alibaba-qwen38-max-ai-model-launch-080326","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"qz.com"},{"n":5,"title":"The Decoder: Qwen 3.8 open weights under Apache 2.0","url":"https://the-decoder.com/alibabas-qwen-team-releases-qwen-3-8-models-with-open-weights-under-the-apache-2-0-license/","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"the-decoder.com"}],"official":1,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["Alibaba","Qwen"],"title":"Alibaba launches Qwen3.8-Max (2.4T MoE) and open-sources the Qwen3.8 family","summary":"On 2026-08-03 Alibaba launched Qwen3.8-Max, a 2.4T-parameter (95B active) MoE with 1M context, claiming parity with Anthropic's Fable 5 on several agent/coding tasks; it then released open weights for Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B (custom license, ~Aug 12-13), Qwen3.8-27B (Apache 2.0, Aug 14) and Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (Aug 26).","key_facts":["Qwen3.8-Max: 2.4T total / 95B active parameters, context up to 1M tokens (Bloomberg/Quartz via search)","Alibaba-published comparisons: PaperBench 93.0 vs Fable 5's 88.8; IFBench 82.8 vs 63.5 (vendor claims)","First time Alibaba open-sourced a model at this scale; 2.4T checkpoint uses a custom Qwen3.8-Max license, not Apache","Qwen3.8-27B: dense multimodal, Apache 2.0, 262K native context extendable to 1M with YaRN (The Decoder)","Alibaba shares rallied after the launch (CNBC)"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["llm","open-weights","china","moe","multimodal"],"science":null,"body_md":"## What happened\n\nAlibaba's Qwen team released **Qwen3.8-Max** on Monday 2026-08-03 through QwenCloud, calling it the most capable Qwen model yet: a mixture-of-experts with 2.4T total\nand 95B active parameters and up to 1M tokens of context. Alibaba's own benchmark tables showed it comparable to Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 on several coding and general-agent tasks and ahead on\nsome multimodal/document benchmarks. Open weights followed: the 2.4T checkpoint (Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B) under a custom license, then **Qwen3.8-27B** under Apache 2.0 on 2026-08-14,\nand **Qwen3.8-Flash-Next** on 2026-08-26.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nTogether with Kimi K3 and DeepSeek V4, Qwen3.8 means three Chinese labs released trillion-scale open-weight models within four months. Benchmarks are vendor-reported (confidence medium).\n\nAt Apsara 2026 (2026-09-22) Alibaba said an updated Qwen3.8-Max had gone through 33 fully automated \"recursive self-improvement\" cycles in a month, raising its Artificial Analysis score from 40 to 45 (company claim; see 2026-09-22-alibaba-apsara-2026-qwen-4-roadmap).","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2026-09-22-alibaba-apsara-2026-qwen-4-roadmap","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-22-alibaba-apsara-2026-qwen-4-roadmap/","date":"2026-09-22","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Apsara 2026: Alibaba says Qwen 4 is in training, targets 5-10T-parameter Qwen 4.5/5, reports self-improvement runs and unveils Zhenwu V900 chip","deck":null,"takeaway":"It is the most concrete public scale target from a Chinese lab: 5-10T-parameter models plus a 20 GW data-center target.","category":"business","category_label":"Business","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":12,"official":4,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-10-13","orgs":["Alibaba","Qwen"]},{"id":"2026-08-26-qwen3-8-flash-next","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-26-qwen3-8-flash-next/","date":"2026-08-26","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Qwen3.8-Flash-Next, a 125B MoE with 6B active, previews the Qwen 4 architecture","deck":null,"takeaway":"It pushes the cost frontier: near-frontier agentic coding numbers at 6B active parameters make strong models cheap to serve at 1M-token contexts.","category":"open-source","category_label":"Open source","importance":3,"confidence":"medium","status":{"key":"partly","labels":["Partly confirmed"]},"sources":8,"official":4,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-10-04","orgs":["Alibaba","Qwen"]},{"id":"2026-07-16-moonshot-kimi-k3","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-07-16-moonshot-kimi-k3/","date":"2026-07-16","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3, a 2.8T-parameter open-weights multimodal model","deck":null,"takeaway":null,"category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":5,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":5,"official":1,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-10-11","orgs":["Moonshot AI"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[],"changes":[{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"edit","text":"Added Apsara 2026 self-improvement claim and link"},{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"filed","text":"Created"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-09-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-09-29","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-04"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":95,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":34,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"gemini-4-hydrogen","name":"Gemini 4 Hydrogen","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":125,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":64,"in_training_data":false}],"short_url":"https://postcutoff.com/s/alibaba-qwen3-8-max-open-sources"}