Chinese New Year canceled: Alibaba works nights on DeepSeek response
A real technological race erupted in China, where Alibaba engineers faced an unprecedented situation. They had to cancel their vacations. And work even during Chinese New Year. And this is one of the most significant and revered holidays in all of China!
What caused such urgent mobilization? The release of an inexpensive but incredibly powerful model from DeepSeek literally shook Alibaba management. They suddenly realized how far behind they had fallen in artificial intelligence compared to competitors. The decision was radical. Cancel all weekends, organize overnight stays right in the office and throw all efforts into accelerated development.
The main goal of this technological sprint was to accelerate the release of their own artificial intelligence model called Qwen. And the strategy worked – since then Alibaba has been releasing new models at a significantly accelerated pace. Striving to make up for lost time and technological lag.
Moreover, the company is making a truly large-scale bet on the future of artificial intelligence. Additionally, Alibaba plans to invest $53 billion in developing infrastructure for artificial intelligence.
