Qwen
Liu Dayiheng, Qwen LLM project lead (Yicai, September 21, 2026, citing the Apsara Conference site). Not a separate company CEO. Alibaba Group CEO is Eddie Wu.
Data verified as of Sep 24, 2026
Summary
Qwen (Tongyi Qianwen) is Alibaba's family of large language and multimodal models, not a separately listed company. Alibaba Cloud launched a public beta in April 2023. The models are served through Alibaba Cloud Model Studio and the Qwen app at qwen.ai, and many weights are published for others to run. On August 3, 2026 Alibaba introduced Qwen3.8-Max, a 2.4 trillion parameter model with 95 billion parameters active and a context window of up to 1 million tokens. It later released those flagship weights and an Apache 2.0 27 billion parameter model. On September 22, 2026 Alibaba said the next model, Qwen 4, was in training, and that later Qwen 4.5 and Qwen 5 models are projected at 5 to 10 trillion parameters. Yicai reported on September 21 that Liu Dayiheng had been named Qwen LLM project lead. No standalone Qwen revenue figure was found.
Company OverviewRead the long-form profile of QwenMain Products
Alibaba's flagship Qwen model announced August 3, 2026. It has 2.4 trillion parameters, 95 billion active, and a context window of up to 1 million tokens, using a sparse mixture-of-experts design. It was offered first as an API on Alibaba Cloud Model Studio. Weights were later released as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B. Wikipedia says that larger release is not on the same Apache 2.0 terms as the 27B model.
API from August 3, 2026. Flagship weights released by the August 17 post.
A smaller open-weight Qwen3.8 model. Alibaba's August 17, 2026 post says it is a native multimodal dense model that can run on consumer hardware, with a 262K context window that extends to 1 million tokens, under the Apache 2.0 license. Alibaba said it matched Qwen3.7-Plus, an MoE model it described as ten times the size.
Weights released under Apache 2.0. Described in the August 17, 2026 post.
The public Qwen site and chatbot at qwen.ai. Wikipedia describes Qwen as available as a web app and on Android. Alibaba's August 3 post points developers at the Qwen blog on that domain and says the model family powers services across its platforms. This entry is the consumer and developer front door, not a separate legal entity.
Public site qwen.ai. No separate revenue disclosed.
What's Next
Operations & Revenue
Qwen is an active model family inside Alibaba. Qwen3.8-Max was announced on August 3, 2026 and its weights followed, along with the Apache 2.0 Qwen3.8-27B. On September 22, 2026 Alibaba said Qwen 4 was in training. The consumer and developer entry point cited by Alibaba and Wikipedia is qwen.ai. There is no separate Qwen profit statement.
Revenue Streams
Qwen3.8-Max was made available through APIs on Alibaba Cloud Model Studio. The September 22 roadmap also ties Qwen to Alibaba Cloud's model, agent, and data-center business. No Qwen or Cloud revenue number was opened, so this is a product channel, not a sales figure.
Alibaba publishes Qwen weights for others to download and run. Qwen3.8-27B is Apache 2.0. Wikipedia says the 2.4 trillion parameter release uses a license that requires a commercial agreement after a provider passes US$50 million of revenue in 12 months. Open weights are a distribution strategy. They are not, by themselves, recognized revenue.
Key Metrics
- Employees
- Unknown. No Qwen headcount was in the pages opened.
Timeline
On August 3, 2026 Alibaba announced Qwen3.8-Max, 2.4 trillion parameters with 95 billion active and a context window of up to 1 million tokens, on Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, with weights planned for the following week. By the August 17 post, the flagship weights were out as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B and Qwen3.8-27B was out under Apache 2.0. Wikipedia says the larger model's license requires a commercial agreement once a provider's revenue exceeds US$50 million in 12 months.
