Alibaba Qwen 2.5-MAX Surpassed DeepSeek R1

Alibaba Cloud has announced the release of Qwen 2.5-Max, their new flagship large language model (LLM) from the Tongyi Qianwen series. This model is a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture and has been trained on over 20 trillion tokens. The announcement emphasizes that Qwen2.5-Max achieves leading performance on several industry-standard benchmarks, surpassing both open-source MoE models and the largest open-source dense models. The model is accessible to developers through the Alibaba Cloud Bailian platform and can be experienced via the Qwen Chat platform.

Qwen 2.5Max

Key Features of Qwen 2.5-Max

Superior Performance

• The primary focus of the announcement is the performance of Qwen2.5-Max. It claims to significantly outperform existing open-source models in various areas including knowledge, programming, comprehensive capabilities, and alignment with human preferences.
• The new model demonstrates extremely strong overall performance, scoring high marks on multiple public mainstream model evaluation benchmarks, completely surpassing the currently leading global open-source MoE model and the largest open-source dense model.

Qwen ChatGPT DeepSeekV3 Comparison

Benchmarking

• The announcement provides specific benchmark results comparing Qwen2.5-Max against other prominent models, including closed-source models like Claude-3.5-Sonnet and GPT-4o (for the instruction-tuned version) and open-source models like DeepSeek V3 and Llama-3.1-405B (for the base model).
• The announcement claims that Qwen2.5-Max instruction model on-par with Claude-3.5-Sonnet and outperforms GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Llama-3.1-405B on several key benchmarks.
• In benchmark tests such as Arena-Hard, LiveBench, LiveCodeBench, GPQA-Diamond and MMLU-Pro, Qwen2.5-Max rivals Claude-3.5-Sonnet and almost completely surpasses GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Llama-3.1-405B.
• In all 11 benchmark tests, Qwen2.5-Max base model outperformed DeepSeek V3 and Llama-3.1-405B.

Qwen ChatGPT DeepSeekV3 11 Benchmark Comparison

Availability and Access of Qwen 2.5-Max

Qwen2.5-Max is accessible through two primary avenues:

• Alibaba Cloud Bailian Platform: Enterprises and developers can directly call the model’s API via the Bailian platform using the model name qwen-max-2025-01-25.
• Qwen Chat Platform: A new Qwen Chat platform allows users to interact with the model directly, including utilizing features like artifacts and search. This is positioned as a free experience.

Future Development

Alibaba Cloud expresses confidence in future versions of Qwen2.5-Max, indicating plans to continue scaling both data size and model parameters. They are also focusing on reinforcement learning to further improve the model’s capabilities and potentially achieve “superhuman intelligence.”

• The Tongyi team is full of confidence in the next version of Qwen2.5-Max and will continue to explore. In addition to continuing to explore the scaling of pre-training, it will also invest heavily in the scaling of reinforcement learning, hoping to achieve superhuman intelligence and drive AI to explore the unknown.
• MoE Architecture: The release explicitly identifies Qwen2.5-Max as an MoE model, highlighting Alibaba Cloud’s focus on this architectural approach for LLMs.

Implications of Qwen 2.5-Max Release

• This release signals Alibaba Cloud’s continued investment and advancements in the LLM space, directly competing with leading models from both open-source and closed-source providers.
• The claimed performance improvements could have significant implications for various applications, particularly in areas like knowledge-intensive tasks, programming, and general AI capabilities.
• The accessibility of Qwen2.5-Max through both a paid API and a free chat interface provides options for different user needs and could drive adoption.
• Alibaba Cloud’s commitment to further scaling and reinforcement learning suggests ongoing efforts to push the boundaries of LLM performance.

Conclusion: A New Leader in Open-Source AI

Qwen 2.5Max

With the release of Qwen2.5-Max, Alibaba Cloud has solidified its position as a frontrunner in the AI space. The model’s superior performance, demonstrated through rigorous benchmarking, places it ahead of both open-source and closed-source competitors in key areas like knowledge, programming, and human alignment. Its accessibility through the Bailian API and Qwen Chat platform ensures broad adoption, catering to both developers and general users. As Alibaba Cloud continues to push the boundaries with reinforcement learning and model scaling, Qwen2.5-Max represents a significant step toward more powerful, intelligent, and widely available AI solutions.