阿里通义千问正式发布

2023 年 4 月，阿里云宣布通义千问开启测试。这是阿里自研大语言模型第一次向公众亮相。在 ChatGPT 发布后的热潮里，国内大厂陆续亮出自研模型，通义千问是其中声势较大的一员——它背靠阿里云，拥有现成的企业客户与算力基础，定位从一开始就不只是「聊天机器人」，而是「云上的大模型」。

通义千问的走向，在 2023 年夏天发生了关键转折。8 月，阿里开源了 Qwen-7B 与 Qwen-14B。这个决定在当时看似平常，事后看却意义深远：Qwen 系列以强中文能力、良好的多语言表现和宽松的开源协议，迅速被全球开发者采用，成为海外最受欢迎的国产开源模型之一。「通义千问」这个中文产品名，反而让位于「Qwen」这个国际化的模型品牌。

开源与闭源两条腿走路，是阿里大模型策略的核心。对内，通义千问通过阿里云 API 服务企业客户，与钉钉、淘宝等业务结合；对外，Qwen 开源系列持续迭代，从 7B 到 72B 再到 MoE 架构，始终站在开源模型的前列。这条路线让阿里在「大模型+云」的绑定模式里占住了位置——用开源建立生态，用云服务实现变现。

通义千问的意义，在于它示范了云厂商参与大模型竞争的标准姿势。不是单打独斗做应用，而是把模型作为云的基础设施能力对外输出，用生态的规模抵消单点技术的差距。到 2026 年，Qwen3.8 已经成为全球开源与开放模型的重要力量，阿里的这条路线被证明走得又长又稳。

回看 2023 年 4 月那次低调的开放测试，它开启的是一条漫长的国际化道路。从一个中文聊天应用，到一个被全球开发者使用的开源模型家族，通义千问用三年时间完成了身份的蜕变。而这一切的起点，只是那个春天一次简单的「开启测试」。

In April 2023 Alibaba Cloud announced that Tongyi Qianwen was opening for testing—the first time Alibaba's self-developed large language model appeared publicly. Amid the post-ChatGPT wave, Chinese big companies were rolling out their own models, and Qianwen stood out: backed by Alibaba Cloud, it had ready enterprise customers and compute infrastructure, positioned from the start not just as a "chatbot" but as "the foundation model on the cloud."

Qianwen's trajectory took a decisive turn in summer 2023. In August, Alibaba open-sourced Qwen-7B and Qwen-14B. The decision looked ordinary then but proved momentous: with strong Chinese ability, good multilingual performance, and a permissive license, Qwen was rapidly adopted by developers worldwide, becoming one of the most popular Chinese open models overseas. The Chinese product name "Tongyi Qianwen" gave way to "Qwen" as an international model brand.

Walking on two legs—open and closed—was the core of Alibaba's model strategy. Inwardly, Qianwen served enterprise customers through Alibaba Cloud API and integrated with DingTalk and Taobao; outwardly, the open-source Qwen line kept iterating, from 7B to 72B to MoE architectures, always near the frontier of open models. This route let Alibaba own the "model plus cloud" bundling play: build the ecosystem with open source, monetize through cloud services.

Qianwen's significance lies in demonstrating the standard posture for a cloud vendor in the model race. Not fighting alone with apps, but exporting the model as cloud infrastructure, offsetting the gap of any single technical advantage with the scale of the ecosystem. By 2026, with Qwen3.8 a major force in global open and accessible models, this route has proven long and stable.

Looking back at that low-key testing announcement in April 2023, it opened a long road to internationalization. From a Chinese chat app to an open-model family used by developers worldwide, Qianwen completed its identity transformation in three years. And the starting point was simply "opening for testing" one spring day.