Chinese artificial intelligence models had already been outpacing expectations — but they have now pushed the bar even higher. Two local tech groups have recently dropped significant updates. DeepSeek released a dramatically improved V3 model last week, while Alibaba launched a new model in its Qwen series, efficient enough to run on mobile phones.

DeepSeek’s upgrade intensifies competition with US rivals such as OpenAI. Alibaba’s latest Qwen model, meanwhile, can process images, audio and video on laptops and mobile phones. The company envisions the model powering AI agents that, for example, provide real-time audio descriptions to help visually impaired users navigate the world. That is something earlier systems could handle only in limited, predefined scenarios.

DeepSeek’s upgraded model also shows significant improvements in reasoning and coding compared with its predecessor. These results were published on Hugging Face, a global platform for sharing and evaluating AI models. By making the model publicly available on such platforms, DeepSeek is enabling developers around the world to build and test AI agents more easily.