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Alibaba Launches ‘Most Capable’ Qwen3.8-Max, Set to Become First Open-Weight Max Model Next Week

Built on the Qwen 3.5 architecture, Alibaba's 2.4-trillion-parameter model is compared by the company with frontier AI models from companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI, with pricing set at $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens.
Qwen3.8-Max logo text next to the Alibaba.com logo, representing Alibaba's launch of its Qwen3.8-Max AI model
August 3, 2026 06:57 PM IST | Written by Neelam Sharma | Edited by Pratima O Pareek

Alibaba’s Qwen team has officially released its latest flagship artificial intelligence model, Qwen3.8-Max, which it describes as the most capable model in the Qwen family to date. Built on the architecture of Qwen 3.5, the model scales to 2.4 trillion parameters (95B active).

Alibaba said it will release the open weights of Qwen3.8-Max next week, making it the first open-weight model in the Qwen-Max series. “The model weights will be open-sourced on Hugging Face and ModelScope next week,” the document said. The company also plans to release open weights for Qwen3.8-27B.


The company compared Qwen3.8-Max with Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 and Fable 5, OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol (max) and its previous flagship, Qwen3.7-Max, across coding agent benchmarks.

According to the company, QwenCloud supports industry-standard protocols, including chat completions and responses APIs compatible with OpenAI’s specification, as well as an API interface compatible with Anthropic. Alibaba said this enables developers to integrate Qwen3.8-Max with existing AI applications and use the model with Claude Code and other agent frameworks and coding assistants.

The company also highlighted the model’s autonomous coding capabilities, saying Qwen3.8-Max spent more than 10 days building the open-source oh-my-cli project from scratch while continuously refining its code through self-testing and feedback.

On pricing, Alibaba priced Qwen3.8-Max at $2 per million input tokens, $6 per million output tokens and $0.25 per million cached input tokens.

Alibaba also said Qwen3.8-Max demonstrated long-horizon autonomous planning, including more than 500 rounds of chip design optimization and a 365-day e-commerce benchmark, in which it achieved a final balance of ¥416,252 from ¥100,000 in starting capital.

Also Read: Inside Story: How Claude Code Dispute Escalated Between Alibaba and Anthropic

Authors

  • Neelam Sharma, reporter at AI FrontPage

    Neelam Sharma is a passionate storyteller, and journalist with over a decade of experience across leading Indian media houses.
    Known for her calm presence on screen and powerful storytelling off it, Neelam brings a rare blend of credibility, creativity, and empathy to journalism. Her strength lies in ground reporting and research-driven narratives that connect with the heart of the audience. Whether covering social issues, human-interest features, or breaking news, she combines factual depth with a human touch—making every story not just informative.

    LinkedIn
  • Pratima Pareek, Editor and Co-founder of AI FrontPage

    Pratima O Pareek is an Editor and Co-Founder of AI FrontPage. A gold medalist in Mass Communication and Journalism, she's worked across national and international newsrooms, bringing sharp editorial instincts and a commitment to clarity. She believes in cutting through the noise to deliver stories that actually matter.
    Off the clock, she watches offbeat cinema, follows tennis, and explores new places like a traveler, not a tourist.

    LinkedIn

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