China-based Alibaba upgraded its AI assistant Quark powered by its latest Qwen-based large language model (LLM), with the e-commerce giant’s spending on AI and cloud infrastructure enabling it to compete with rivals DeepSeek, Tencent and ByteDance.

In a statement, Alibaba noted the revamped app integrates capabilities including a chatbot, deep thinking and task execution into an easy-to-use interface, adding it can handle tasks ranging from generating images and presentations, to travel planning.

Quark CEO Wu Jia stated “we envision Quark as a gateway to endless possibilities where users can explore everything with AI”, as its model capabilities continue to evolve.

The company said the upgraded Quark will be available to all users gradually, with a pilot launched today (13 March).

Last week, Alibaba Cloud introduced QwQ-32B, a compact reasoning model with 32 billion parameters built on built on Qwen 2.5-32B which it stated delivers performance comparable with larger cutting-edge models.

Radio Free Mobile founder Richard Windsor noted if independent testing verifies the new model performs as well as its much larger rivals, it will be another “feather in the cap of China’s reputation as an AI powerhouse” and accelerate the trend of deploying models on edge devices rather than in the cloud.

Alibaba reported last month its capex tripled year-on-year to $10 billion in 2024.

It recently reached a deal with Apple to develop AI features for iPhones sold in China.