Chinese tech giant Alibaba has just launched Qwen3-Coder, a new artificial intelligence model designed to assist software developers in writing code. The company says it’s their most advanced coding tool yet and is making it open-source, meaning it’s free for developers worldwide to use and modify.
The release comes as the AI race between Chinese and American tech companies intensifies, with both sides releasing increasingly powerful tools at a rapid pace.
So what makes this new tool special? Qwen3-Coder is built to handle complex software development tasks, from automatically generating code to managing entire projects. Alibaba is especially proud of its ability to perform “agentic” tasks. In simple terms, this means the AI can work independently, tackling difficult programming challenges on its own without needing a human to guide every step.
Alibaba isn’t being quiet about the power of its new tool. According to performance data the company released, Qwen3-Coder beats out its Chinese competitors, including models from DeepSeek and Moonshot AI. More impressively, Alibaba claims its model is as good as top American AIs, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude, in certain coding areas.
This launch shows that Alibaba is serious about being a major player in the foundational technology that will shape the future, proving it can compete with the biggest names in the global AI race.
