Alibaba launches new Qwen-Robot series to power intelligent machines

Chinese technology giant Alibaba has unveiled a new series of artificial intelligence models designed specifically for robotics, marking a further expansion of China’s rapidly growing AI ecosystem.

The new suite, named Qwen-Robot, was presented in a company announcement and reported by TASS. It includes three specialised models: Qwen-RobotManip, focused on robotic arm manipulation; Qwen-RobotNav, designed for navigation tasks; and Qwen-RobotWorld, aimed at enabling spatial understanding and interaction with the physical environment.

The launch reflects Alibaba’s broader strategy to integrate advanced AI capabilities into embodied systems, moving beyond large language models into robotics and real-world applications.

In February 2025, Alibaba CEO Wu Yongming said the company planned to invest 380 billion yuan (around $52 billion) over three years in cloud computing infrastructure and artificial intelligence development, underlining the scale of its long-term commitment to the sector.

China’s AI industry continues to expand at high speed, with major players including Baidu, Tencent, DeepSeek, MiniMax, Moonshot AI, and Zhipu AI all competing to develop increasingly advanced models across language, reasoning, and multimodal systems.