Tongyi Qianwen

Tongyi is the large model series of Alibaba Cloud Tongyi Laboratory: Qianwen Large Language Model covers language, vision and audio understanding as well as Agent capabilities, Wanxiang is responsible for image, video and audio generation, and has long open-sourced the Qwen series.

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Updated: 2026-10-26

What is Tongyi Qianwen?

Tongyi is the large model series of Alibaba Cloud. The official website takes "Tongyi Lab" as the unified entry point, bringing together the full range of large models, industry information and cutting-edge applications. Officially, the Qianwen large language model has undergone pre-training with a parameter scale of over one trillion, possessing various capabilities such as natural language understanding, text generation, visual understanding, audio understanding, tool usage, role-playing, and AI Agent interaction. The Wanxiang visual generation large model is trained through a native multimodal unified framework and is responsible for multimodal generation such as images, videos, and sounds. These two product lines together form a complete ecosystem ranging from APIs to open-source weights, and from personal applications to enterprise integration. Officially, tens of thousands of customers have chosen the Qianwen large model. For Chinese users and developers, it is one of the domestic large models that has a relatively comprehensive coverage of the three paths of "understanding, generation, and open source".

Who is it for?

Developers who need to integrate Chinese large model APIs or open-source weights into their products, teams focusing on domestic multimodal generation capabilities, and enterprise users who want to implement large models in scenarios such as office and terminal devices; for individual users who only need daily Q&A, the web version can also be used directly. When evaluating domestic multimodal capabilities, teams can directly refer to the model lists of Qianwen and Wanxiang for selection, and first clarify the task type before choosing a model.

Key features

Multimodal Understanding

Qianwen supports the unified understanding and generation of text, images, and audio. It is not limited to pure text conversations and can handle richer inputs.

Multi-model Tier Selection

Ranging from lightweight and high-speed models to all-round flagship models, it covers Qwen3-Max (all-round and powerful), Qwen-Plus (flagship with balanced performance), Qwen-Flash (lightweight and high-speed), as well as specialized models for code, vision, full-modality and other scenarios, and is selected according to tasks.

Agent and Tool Usage

Supports tool use and AI Agent interaction, can be embedded into complex task chains, and enables automation in conjunction with model APIs.

Visual Generation (Wanxiang)

It has multi-modal generation capabilities for images, videos, and sounds. The Wan2.6 series covers scenarios such as text-to-image, text-to-video, image-to-video, video human replacement, and mixed text-image layout output; the official emphasizes that it has reached the leading level in terms of picture quality, semantic understanding, motion amplitude, compliance with physical laws, and artistic texture.

Long Document & Industry Solutions

It targets enterprise scenarios such as long document summarization and information extraction, and provides integration solutions for various industries including terminal devices and smart cockpits.

Ecosystem and Customers

The official states that tens of thousands of customers have chosen the Qwen large language model, which is applicable across various industries; the new generation of visual models is also available through platforms like Bailian, making integration convenient for enterprises.

Open-source Ecosystem

The Qwen series is open-sourced for the long term. Developers can deploy and fine-tune it on their own, making it suitable for in-depth customization.

How to use Tongyi Qianwen

First, use general models like Qwen-Flash and Plus to verify the effects, and then upgrade to flagship or dedicated models as needed.
If you want to use open-source weights, pay attention to the fast version iterations, refer to the official release page, and assess deployment and operation costs before taking action.
if you only want to experience dialogue capabilities, directly use the web version entry without self-deployment.
For enterprise access, it is recommended to also consider official platforms such as Bailian, and directly reuse the integration capabilities on the platform, which is more convenient than building from scratch.

Things to know

The model lineup is extensive. When selecting a model, first narrow down to specific models based on task types (dialogue, code, vision, generation), and then compare prices, context length and quotas.

Distinguish between open-source models and those only available via API; the performance of self-deployment is related to computing power investment, and small-scale deployment may fall short of the official API experience.

API calls have costs and rate limits; before production integration, confirm the official latest documentation, pricing, and model status. The multimodal generation capabilities evolve significantly with version updates, so the latest version experience shall prevail for image and video generation tasks. Before integration, it is recommended to run through examples of the target task first, confirm the model type matches the desired effect, and then finalize the solution.