Alibaba Adopts Revenue-Sharing Model for New Qwen AI Model

Alibaba Group plans to implement a revenue-sharing requirement for major commercial users of its upcoming open-weight AI model, Qwen3.8-Max, starting next week. This strategy marks a shift from Alibaba's previous practice of allowing open-source models to be used in customer data centers without payment, instead charging users primarily through its own cloud platform.

The move mirrors a business model recently adopted by Chinese startup Moonshot AI for its Kimi K3 model. Moonshot requires entities generating more than $20 million in annual sales from the model to negotiate commercial agreements, with some revenue shares reaching 30%. Companies including DigitalOcean Holdings and Chinasoft International Ltd. have already entered such agreements with Moonshot.

Chinese AI firms are converging toward this freemium approach to monetize high-volume commercial use while remaining competitive against closed-source U.S. rivals like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Paddy Srinivasan, CEO of DigitalOcean Holdings, described the approach as a tried and tested open-source model.

The shift occurs amid geopolitical tensions. Michael Krastsios, a senior U.S. tech official, accused Moonshot AI of stealing technology from Anthropic's Fable model to develop K3, a claim Chinese officials have rejected as unfounded.