Alibaba Cloud upgrades new AI tools for its global users
With a massive investment that exceeds its total AI and cloud spending over the past decade.
If you’ve been up to date with AI cloud development lately, you’ll know that Alibaba Cloud is cracking things up a bit.
At its Spring Launch 2025 event, the company practically kicked down the digital doors with new AI models, tushed infrastructure, and some very interesting tools.
Alibaba Cloud's Qwen model family is at the forefront, with models like Qwen-Max, QwQ-Plus, and QVQ-Max. They claim these models excel in various areas, from large-scale thinking to complex math, question-answering, and visual problem-solving.
To support these powerful models, Alibaba Cloud upgraded its Platform for AI (PAI). The PAI-Elastic Algorithm Service (EAS) now features a multi-node architecture, enabling it to handle enormous models and ultra-long-text tasks with ease.
Kelechi Edeh
The upgrades didn’t stop there. The PAI-Model Gallery now offers nearly 300 open-source models, including the full Qwen and Wan series, all ready for use with no-code deployment.
But here’s where it gets even more interesting. Alibaba Cloud has now soldered AI into its data management tools. PolarDB, its flagship relational database, now supports native AI inference using Qwen models, eliminating the need to move data for analysis, boosting performance and security.
Model Studio, Alibaba's generative AI development platform, has also been upgraded. It now integrates with AnalyticDB, its data warehouse solution, allowing businesses to connect their private data sources directly to AI models and enhance development.
Now, because not everyone building with AI wants to tinker under the hood, Alibaba Cloud has introduced two SaaS tools to make AI more accessible. AI Doc automates ESG reporting, saving companies time and effort. Smart Studio uses AI for content creation, such as text-to-image and image-to-video, ideal for industries like e-commerce and gaming, allowing businesses to easily create customized visuals, like trying on different outfits or hairstyles.
Alibaba Cloud also launched an AI-powered search assistant on its website to help businesses, especially SMEs, quickly find the solutions they need, complete with strategic insights and links to scalable cloud products.
Backing all of this is a mind-blowing $53 billion investment, exceeding its total AI and cloud spending over the past decade. If my opinions don't count, the numbers speak for themselves: Alibaba is all in on AI.
