What’s New in AI This Week? From Alibaba’s Qwen3-Next to Google’s Research‑Level LLM System

Major AI Model Updates

Alibaba’s Tongyi team released the next‑generation MoE architecture Qwen3‑Next, an 80B‑parameter model that activates only 3B parameters, achieving performance comparable to the 235B Qwen3‑3 flagship while cutting training cost by 90% and improving inference throughput over 32k context lengths.

Tencent open‑sourced HunyuanImage2.1, a 2K‑resolution text‑to‑image model that excels at complex semantic generation, supports seamless Chinese‑English text rendering, and incorporates OCR‑expert and IP‑RAG modules for accurate dense‑text handling.

Google announced a new AI system that combines large language models with tree‑search to automatically write expert‑level research software, demonstrating performance on genomics, public health, and numerical analysis that rivals top research teams.

Industry Moves and Opinions

Rumors circulated that OpenAI researcher Yao Shunyu left the company for Tencent, sparking speculation about billion‑yuan salaries; Tencent later denied the claims, though Yao’s departure from OpenAI was confirmed.

Alibaba Cloud founder Wang Jian argued that OpenAI is on the wrong side of history, emphasizing the strategic importance of open‑sourcing model weights, data, and compute resources.

Transformer creator Ashish Vaswani criticized closed‑source AI for hindering scientific progress and announced his commitment to open‑source research through his new venture Essential AI.

Other Tech Highlights

Bilibili open‑sourced AniSora V3, an animation generation model that supports single‑GPU 4090 inference and multi‑modal interaction, enabling director‑driven multi‑agent long‑form video creation.

The ST‑Raptor framework, a tree‑based intelligent table QA system from Shanghai Jiao‑Tong University and collaborators, was accepted at ACM SIGMOD 2026 for precise understanding and extraction from complex semi‑structured tables.

Apple introduced the iPhone Air, a 5.6 mm thin device that exclusively uses eSIM, with China Unicom providing the first eSIM support in mainland China.

BYD launched the titanium‑grade SUV Fangcheng Leopard 7, featuring a boxy design, dual‑L headlights, and a 1.5T plug‑in hybrid powertrain with up to 200 kW output.