Alibaba Cloud introduced a range of new AI services and infrastructure upgrades to support international customers, expanding access to its foundational models and cloud tools through its availability zones in Singapore.
The updates include the latest models from Alibaba Cloud’s large language model (LLM) series, Qwen, such as Qwen-Max, QwQ-Plus, QVQ-Max, and Qwen2.5-Omni-7b. These models are designed to handle complex reasoning tasks, visual input, and multimodal applications across different industries.
“We are launching a series of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and AI capability updates to meet the growing demand for digital transformation from across the globe,” said Selina Yuan, president of international business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “These upgrades allow us to deliver even more secure and high-performance services that empower businesses to scale and innovate in an AI-driven world.”
QwQ-Plus specializes in analytical thinking, solving sophisticated QA tasks and expert-level math problems. QVQ-Max supports visual reasoning, helping businesses manage multimodal challenges more efficiently.
Infrastructure upgrades support AI growth
To power its new models, Alibaba Cloud’s Platform for AI (PAI) has launched major updates. Its PAI-Elastic Algorithm Service (EAS) now supports distributed inference with multi-node architecture, making it easier to handle large-scale AI models. The prefill-decode disaggregation function boosts system performance, improving concurrency by 92% and tokens per second (TPS) by 91% when used with the Qwen2.5-72B model.
The PAI-Model Gallery has also been enhanced, offering nearly 300 open-source models, including the Qwen and Wan series. Customers can deploy models through a no-code platform, manage resources easily, and reduce costs through features like model evaluation and model distillation.
New SaaS products drive digital transformation
Alibaba Cloud introduced new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tools powered by AI. AI Doc helps businesses process documents faster and generate reports tailored to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards. Smart Studio, another new product, allows users to create text-to-image, image-to-image, and text-to-video content for industries like e-commerce and entertainment.
Alibaba Cloud also rolled out an AI-powered search assistant on its website, helping businesses discover solutions and access free AI and cloud training resources.
The company recently enhanced its partner incentive programs by offering higher commissions and better support tools for resellers and distributors.
In February 2025, Alibaba Group announced a $53 billion investment over the next three years to strengthen its cloud computing and AI infrastructure.