In an unexpected move on the first day of Lunar New Year, Chinese tech giant Alibaba announced its latest AI model, Qwen 2.5-Max, claiming it outperforms several leading models including the recently released DeepSeek-V3.

Max's release points to the pressure DeepSeek's meteoric rise in the past three weeks has placed on overseas rivals and domestic competition.

China’s growing influence in AI is evident as companies like DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI are challenging the traditional dominance of US tech giants