Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. launched the beta version of HappyShrimp, an artificial intelligence music-generation model. The system can turn a single text prompt into a fully produced song, expanding the Chinese technology giant's push into generative AI.
The company is also aggressively targeting the consumer AI market. On November 17, Alibaba initiated a beta launch of the Qwen app, available as Qwen Chat in the Chinese version of Apple's App Store.
Currently restricted to users in mainland China, this tool aims to transform cutting-edge foundational AI model capabilities into real-life applications. The company stated the app is built to serve as an "AI-powered gateway to daily life."
Advancing Multimodal Capabilities
Alibaba recently made its video- and image-generating AI model, Wan 2.1, publicly available as an open-source release. The move is likely to increase its uptake and intensify competition in the space, following similar low-cost open-source actions from startup DeepSeek.
The company released four distinct variants of Wan 2.1: T2V-1.3B, T2V-14B, I2V-14B-720P, and I2V-14B-480P. These models generate visual media directly from text and image inputs. The "14B" indicates the variant accepts 14 billion parameters, allowing it to process far more input to yield accurate results.
Furthermore, Alibaba announced via a blog post published on Monday that it made Qwen3.8-Max widely available to users. The company called the release its largest and most capable AI model to date.
Alibaba claims Qwen3.8-Max's performance rivals the best systems from US frontier labs Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as domestic rivals like Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3. Following a preview last month, the company claimed the system is second only to Anthropic’s flagship Fable 5.
Alibaba has also showcased Qwen3-Max-Thinking, a generative AI model that can create text, pictures, or video based on user commands. The company claimed this model outperformed major US competitors on a broad benchmark test called "Humanity's Last Exam."
This new system can automatically select the best AI tool for a range of tasks. It also continuously draws on past conversations to provide context, generating new responses more efficiently at little additional cost. Meanwhile, domestic competitor Z.ai also recently released a free version of its GLM 4.7 model on January 19.
Massive Infrastructure Investment
These rapid model rollouts are backed by massive financial commitments to the technology sector. Alibaba announced plans to invest at least 380 billion yuan ($52 billion) over the next three years to bolster its cloud computing and AI infrastructure.
The open release of another highly capable Chinese AI model adds to sky-high tensions along multiple fronts in Washington and Silicon Valley. Policymakers and tech leaders are increasingly focused on how to safely manage AI systems while retaining the US technological edge over China.
Simultaneously, the AI music space Alibaba is entering faces significant legal scrutiny in the United States. Leading generative AI music companies, such as Suno and Udio, are currently facing lawsuits from US record labels for copyright infringement.
The labels allege these systems have generated unauthorized soundalikes. The Udio lawsuit noted a dozen outputs resembling Mariah Carey's perennial hit "All I Want for Christmas Is You." RIAA chief legal officer Ken Doroshow claims these AI companies are trying to conceal the full scope of their infringement.