Wired says Alibaba's Qwen will dominate AI in 2026
Wired declared that 2026 will be dominated by Alibaba's Qwen AI model rather than OpenAI's GPT-5, following disappointing August 2025 releases of American models that suffered from basic errors and failed to meet expectations.
Chinese AI model downloads overtook U.S. models on HuggingFace in July 2025, with Qwen becoming the second-most-used open model globally and gaining adoption from Airbnb, Nvidia, and even Meta for training new models.
Qwen's rise stems from its open-weight architecture allowing easy customization, transparent research practices that earned a Best Paper Award at NeurIPS 2025, and real-world deployment in applications from smart glasses to electric vehicle dashboards, according to the article.
Wired declared that 2026 will be dominated by Alibaba's Qwen AI model rather than OpenAI's GPT-5, following disappointing August 2025 releases of American models that suffered from basic errors and failed to meet expectations.
Chinese AI model downloads overtook U.S. models on HuggingFace in July 2025, with Qwen becoming the second-most-used open model globally and gaining adoption from Airbnb, Nvidia, and even Meta for training new models.
Qwen's rise stems from its open-weight architecture allowing easy customization, transparent research practices that earned a Best Paper Award at NeurIPS 2025, and real-world deployment in applications from smart glasses to electric vehicle dashboards, according to the article.
