Alibaba’s lightweight Qwen model takes on larger AI systems from OpenAI, DeepSeek, Zhipu

SCMP TechAugust 18, 2026en

Alibaba Group Holding’s new lightweight AI model Qwen3.8-27B has matched much larger near-frontier rivals while being able to run on everyday hardware, impressing developers as local AI gains momentum. The Qwen3.8-27B, a small model with 27 billion parameters, performed on par with OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Luna, which was billed as the most cost-efficient model in the US lab’s latest flagship series, benchmark firm Artificial Analysis said on Monday. It nearly matched leading open-weight models from...

This is a short summary published by AI Global Wire. The full article is owned and hosted by SCMP Tech — open it there to read it in full.

• OpenAI
• DeepSeek