Qwen AI Surges to 10M Downloads: The Next Global AI Breakthrough

Alibaba’s newly relaunched Qwen AI app has rapidly become one of the most talked-about developments in the global artificial intelligence landscape, recording more than 10 million downloads within its first week of public beta.

The surge marks one of the fastest early adoption curves seen in the consumer AI market, surpassing the initial momentum of tools like ChatGPT, Sora, and DeepSeek (Artificial Intelligence News). The explosive uptake reflects a strategic shift in how major tech companies are approaching AI deployment. While Western competitors lean heavily on subscription models, Alibaba is carving out a different path by offering free access and embedding Qwen directly into its broader ecosystem of e-commerce, mapping, and enterprise services. This positions the app not merely as a chatbot but as a comprehensive AI utility capable of executing cross-scenario tasks while generating content.

Alibaba’s decision to fully open-source its Qwen model in 2023 helped lay the groundwork for this moment. The open-source approach has contributed to more than 600 million cumulative global downloads across Qwen model versions, with the latest iteration, Qwen3-Max, now ranking among the top performers in global AI benchmarks (Artificial Intelligence News). The model has already earned high-profile endorsements from Silicon Valley executives, including Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, underscoring its competitive capability in enterprise contexts. Many businesses that grapple with AI integration costs, licensing fees, and return-on-investment concerns may find Alibaba’s approach appealing, especially since the company offers its models without licensing charges and supports integration across its platforms.

Investor enthusiasm has followed quickly. In Hong Kong, Alibaba’s share price jumped more than 5 percent as the download milestone became public, climbing as high as HK$156.3 during Monday trading (Investing.com). The company emphasized that Qwen is available not only on mobile but also on the web, with global expansion in progress. Alibaba described the app as capable of generating research reports and full multi-slide presentations from a single prompt, branding it as “the best personal AI assistant with the most powerful model” (Investing.com). Such claims reflect the confidence of a company that, under CEO Eddie Wu, is actively repositioning itself as an AI-first enterprise.

The timing of Qwen’s success is particularly significant in China, where access to ChatGPT remains restricted. This creates a rare opening for Alibaba to define the front-end AI experience for millions of consumers (Yahoo Finance). Analysts note that Qwen’s early acceleration is one of the fastest in China since Meta’s Threads, adding urgency to investor discussions about whether Alibaba can convert early traction into long-term value. Kenny Ng of China Everbright Securities International noted that the app’s performance could meaningfully influence Alibaba’s consumer-facing business and future valuation. Meanwhile, momentum across the broader Alibaba ecosystem reinforces the trend: Ant Group reported that its multimodal AI assistant, LingGuang, reached one million downloads just four days after launch.

Looking ahead, Alibaba plans to expand Qwen into a unified AI hub that integrates food delivery, health guidance, travel booking, digital maps, office utilities, education tools, and e-commerce capabilities. This concept aligns with industry analysts’ framing of “agentic AI,” where models do not simply answer questions but take actions across platforms. However, the company’s free-access strategy introduces notable competitive implications. While the approach lowers barriers for consumers and enterprises, analysts warn that it may pose sustainability challenges for smaller AI startups without Alibaba’s financial strength or ecosystem advantages. This tension may reshape how companies evaluate AI adoption, weighing immediate cost benefits against long-term data governance and vendor dependency.

For now, the Qwen app’s debut signals a pivotal moment in the global AI race. With unprecedented early adoption, strong enterprise credibility, and a bold ecosystem-driven roadmap, Alibaba is positioning Qwen not only as a rival to existing AI assistants but as an integrated digital entry point for millions of users. Whether this momentum translates into lasting market leadership will become clearer in the months ahead, but its early trajectory has already reshaped expectations across the industry.

This article was written by the Covertly.AI team. Covertly.AI is a secure, anonymous AI chat that protects your privacy. Connect to advanced AI models without tracking, logging, or exposure of your data. Whether you’re an individual who values privacy or a business seeking enterprise-grade data protection, Covertly.AI helps you stay secure and anonymous when using AI. With Covertly.AI, you get seamless access to all popular large language models - without compromising your identity or data privacy.

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