The evolution of qwen: alibaba's journey from 7b to 2.4T parameters

Alibaba Cloud's Qwen series has evolved significantly since its initial release in April 2023. Starting with the 7B model, the series expanded rapidly, with open-sourcing of Qwen-7B and Qwen-7B-Chat in August 2023. By December 2023, Alibaba had released models ranging from 1.8B to 72B parameters. In 2024, Qwen saw three major releases, including Qwen1.5, Qwen2, and Qwen2.5, each with enhanced capabilities and broader language support. In 2025, Qwen3 introduced hybrid reasoning models, and by July 2025, the series included models with over 1 trillion parameters. In February 2026, Qwen3.5 and Qwen3.6 were launched, with the latter featuring a 2.4T parameter model, Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B. By September 2026, Qwen had over 1 billion downloads and 400 open models, becoming a key part of Alibaba's AI infrastructure.