All posts tagged: Alibaba

Alibaba Backs a Custom AI Model

Alibaba Backs a Custom AI Model

Published by Webster

Apple Intelligence will not look the same everywhere. In China, Apple has reportedly trained its own large language model with help from Alibaba as it prepares to bring its delayed AI features to one of its most important markets. The China-specific model marks a shift from Apple’s earlier plan to depend mainly on local partners for generative AI. Apple Intelligence is expected to launch in China in the coming months, but regulatory rules, the unavailability of US models, and partnerships with Alibaba and Baidu mean Chinese users and businesses could receive a different AI stack than customers elsewhere in APAC. China’s AI rules force Apple onto a different path Reuters reported that Apple trained the China-specific model with Alibaba’s support, citing three people familiar with the matter. Apple and Alibaba did not comment on the report. Apple cannot simply copy the AI setup it uses elsewhere. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude are not available in China, while public generative AI services must clear the country’s regulatory process. The Cyberspace Administration of China registered Apple’s generative …

Alibaba Cloud Bets on France as Europe Seeks More Control Over AI

Alibaba Cloud Bets on France as Europe Seeks More Control Over AI

Published by Webster

Europe wants more control over the infrastructure behind AI, and Alibaba Cloud wants a bigger role in that market. The company has launched its first cloud region in France, adding two availability zones in Paris for European businesses weighing local cloud hosting, data sovereignty, and AI infrastructure needs. The expansion gives European companies another regional cloud option as regulators focus on data sovereignty, cybersecurity, and resilience. It also positions Alibaba Cloud to deliver enterprise agentic AI services to European customers later this year. Alibaba Cloud adds two availability zones in France Alibaba Cloud announced that its new France cloud region is fully operational, adding two availability zones in Paris. The company said the region will support enterprise cloud services, including elastic computing, storage, containerization, networking, security, databases, and developer tools. “The expansion of our cloud infrastructure into France reinforces our ongoing commitment to empowering European businesses with sovereign, secure, and intelligent solutions,” said Dr. Feifei Li, chief technology officer and president of international business at Alibaba Cloud. The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that …

Why US has listed Alibaba, BYD and Baidu as Chinese military companies

Why US has listed Alibaba, BYD and Baidu as Chinese military companies

Published by Parlour News

Earlier this week, the US Department of War added major Chinese companies — including e-commerce giant Alibaba, internet search engine Baidu and EV company BYD — to an official list of “Chinese military companies” operating directly or indirectly in the US. China’s foreign ministry said the list “unreasonably suppressed” Chinese companies and urged the US to “correct its mistaken practices.” Chinese companies, too, criticised the move. BYD told Reuters that the decision harmed “its development achievements in the United States”. Similarly, Alibaba said it was not a Chinese military company “nor part of any military-civil fusion strategy”, and that it would consider appropriate legal action. What is the basis of such inclusions, how does it affect their operations, and what does it say about the state of the larger US-China geopolitical competition? Basis of links to Chinese military The list is in accordance with Section 1260H of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. The Act authorises appropriations for military activities of the US Department of Defense. Here, Section …

Benchmarks Find ‘DeepSeek-V3-0324 Is More Vulnerable Than Qwen2.5-Max’

Benchmarks Find ‘DeepSeek-V3-0324 Is More Vulnerable Than Qwen2.5-Max’

Published by Webster

With the latest stable release dated January 28, 2025, Qwen2.5-Max is classified as a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) language model developed by Alibaba. Like other language models, Qwen2.5-Max is capable of generating text, understanding different languages, and performing advanced logic. According to recent benchmarks, it is also more secure than DeepSeek-V3-0324. Using Recon to scan for vulnerabilities A team of analysts with Protect AI, the company behind a red teaming and security vulnerability scanning tool known as Recon, recently used their platform to compare the security of Qwen2.5-Max against that of DeepSeek-V3. The team’s assessment reads, in part: “We observed that DeepSeek-V3-0324 is more vulnerable than Qwen2.5-Max, with Recon achieving an almost 25% higher attack success rate (ASR).” While it may be more secure than its competition, Qwen2.5-Max isn’t exactly perfect. According to their tests, the AI model is most susceptible to prompt injection attacks, as these represented almost 48% of all successful cyberattacks against Qwen2.5-Max. Evasion and jailbreak attacks proved to be less successful with an approximate ASR of 40% for both. Exposing vulnerabilities in DeepSeek-V3 …

Alibaba Releases Open-Source Wan 2.1 Suite of AI Video Generation Models, Claimed to Outperform OpenAI’s Sora

Alibaba Releases Open-Source Wan 2.1 Suite of AI Video Generation Models, Claimed to Outperform OpenAI’s Sora

Published by Webster

Alibaba released a suite of artificial intelligence (AI) video generation models on Wednesday. Dubbed Wan 2.1, these are open-source models that can be used for both academic and commercial purposes. The Chinese e-commerce giant released the models in several parameter-based variants. Developed by the company’s Wan team, these models were first introduced in January and the company claimed that Wan 2.1 can generate highly realistic videos. Currently, these models are being hosted on the AI and machine learning (ML) hub Hugging Face. Alibaba Introduces Wan 2.1 Video Generation Models The new Alibaba video AI models are hosted on Alibaba’s Wan team’s Hugging Face page. The model pages also detail the Wan 2.1 suite of large language models (LLMs). There are four models in total — T2V-1.3B, T2V-14B, I2V-14B-720P, and I2V-14B-480P. The T2V is short for text-to-video while the I2V stands for image-to-video. The researchers claim that the smallest variant, Wan 2.1 T2V-1.3B, can be run on a consumer-grade GPU with as little as 8.19GB vRAM. As per the post, the AI model can generate a …

Apple Confirmed to Partner With Alibaba in China for AI-Powered Apple Intelligence Features: Report

Apple Confirmed to Partner With Alibaba in China for AI-Powered Apple Intelligence Features: Report

Published by Webster

Apple’s partnership with Alibaba was reportedly confirmed on Thursday. As per the report, Alibaba chairperson Joseph Chung-Hsin Tsai confirmed the news at the recently concluded World Governments Summit 2025 held in Dubai. The Chinese e-commerce giant will reportedly offer its artificial intelligence (AI) models and infrastructure to power Apple Intelligence features in China. The two entities have reportedly co-developed several AI-powered features that will cater to Apple’s Chinese user base, and it is currently awaiting regulatory approval. No other details are currently known. Alibaba Chairperson Confirms Partnership With Apple According to a Reuters report, the Alibaba chairperson confirmed that the company is working with Apple to develop and support the latter’s AI features. “They talked to a number of companies in China. In the end, they chose to do business with us. They want to use our AI to power their phones. We feel extremely honoured to do business with a great company like Apple,” Tsai was quoted as saying. Interestingly, the Alibaba chairperson also said that the Cupertino-based tech giant discussed the partnership with …

11/11: How a day for ‘singles’ in China became the biggest shopping day in the world | Explained News

11/11: How a day for ‘singles’ in China became the biggest shopping day in the world | Explained News

Published by Parlour News

November 11 (11/11) has been marked as “Singles’ Day” in China, as the college students behind it saw the dates representing lone figures. Since then, it has become a massive commercial activity, once described as “the biggest shopping day on Earth”. For instance, the total value of goods sold on November 11, 2022, totalled 1.15 trillion yuan or $157.97 billion, according to consultancy firm Bain. Major Chinese retailers began offering shopping deals and sales on the day annually, with a slew of events aimed at marketing and promotions. Globally recognised celebrities, such as James Bond fame actor Daniel Craig and musician Taylor Swift, participated in them. How did it originate and where does it stand today? We explain. What is Singles’ Day in China? The idea for Singles Day is believed to have originated at China’s Nanjing University in 1993 and was originally called “Bachelor’s Day”. On the day, single people — particularly men — treated themselves with gifts and presents and organised social gatherings and parties. US-based podcaster Yue Xu, who has also written …

Alibaba Accelerates AI Push by Releasing New Open-Source Models, Text-to-Video AI Technology

Published by Webster

Chinese technology company Alibaba released on Thursday new open-source artificial intelligence models and text-to-video AI technology, intensifying its efforts to compete in the booming area of generative AI. The open-source models, numbering more than 100, come from Alibaba’s Qwen 2.5 family, its latest foundational large language model released in May. Chinese technology companies, like their U.S. counterparts, have been investing heavily in generative AI, with firms racing to develop robust product portfolios and diversified offerings. While competitors such as Baidu and OpenAI have primarily adopted closed-source approaches, Alibaba has embraced a hybrid model, investing in both proprietary and open-source development to broaden its AI product range. Its new models range from 0.5 to 72 billion parameters – the variables that determine an AI model’s capability and performance – in size, offering proficiency in mathematics, coding, and support for over 29 languages, Alibaba said in a statement. The models aim to cater to a wide array of AI applications across various sectors including automotive, gaming, and scientific research. Alibaba on Thursday also unveiled a new text-to-video …

Alibaba, Baidu Slash Prices of Large-Language Models Used to Power AI Chatbots

Published by Webster

Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Baidu slashed prices on Tuesday of large-language models (LLMs) used to power generative artificial intelligence products, as a price war in the cloud computing sector heats up in China. Alibaba’s cloud unit announced price cuts of up to 97 percent on a range of its Tongyi Qwen LLMs. Its Qwen-Long model, for instance, will cost only CNY 0.0005 per 1,000 tokens – or units of data processed by the LLM – after the price cut, down from CNY 0.02 per 1,000 tokens. It was quickly followed by Baidu, which hours later announced that its Ernie Speed and Ernie Lite models would be free for all business users. A price war in China’s cloud computing space has been ongoing for the past few months, with Alibaba and Tencent recently lowering prices of their cloud computing services. Many Chinese cloud vendors have relied on AI chatbot services to boost sales, after China saw a wave of investment in large language models in response to the hit debut of US-based OpenAI’s ChatGPT in …

Jaswir Kaur to play Ali’s mother in ‘Alibaba

Published by Webster

Jaswir Kaur to play Ali’s mother in ‘Alibaba – Ek Andaaz Andekha: Chapter 2’ ( Photo Credit – Instagram ) Film and TV actress Jaswir Kaur has been roped in to play the role of lead character Ali’s (Abhishek Nigam) mother, Roshani in the show ‘Alibaba – Ek Andaaz Andekha: Chapter 2’. Talking about her role, Jaswir said: “Roshani is a character with a lot to offer. Her nobility, kindness and endless displays of courage make her a force to be reckoned with. She is a strong woman and an extremely loving mother.” Jaswir has acted in several movies like ‘Soldier‘, ‘Taal’, ‘Mohabbatein’, ‘Yaadein’, among others. She was also part of TV shows such as ‘CID’, ‘Hitler Didi’, ‘Ishq Ka Rang Safed’, ‘Gangaa’, ‘Waaris’, ‘Gud Se Meetha Ishq’, ‘Anupamaa’, and many more. She further spoke about playing a mother in her new show and said: “To play a character of such prowess is a dream come true. I am looking forward to being part of the show and also admire the content of it.” ‘Alibaba …