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answer: direct
beat: ai-industry
source: 1 article · updated: August 3, 2026
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Which companies are competing in China's AI model race by mid-2026?

By mid-2026 at least five major players are competing across different parts of the Chinese AI market: Alibaba with Qwen, Moonshot AI with Kimi, ByteDance with Doubao, Zhipu with GLM, and Baidu with ERNIE. DeepSeek's low-cost V4-Flash model has further intensified price competition, pushing all players toward cheaper inference pricing.

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Alibaba's 2.4 Trillion-Parameter Model Lands as China's AI Price War Heats Up

Alibaba unveiled Qwen3.8-Max, a 2.4-trillion-parameter model, escalating China's five-way AI race alongside DeepSeek, Kimi, Doubao, and ERNIE.

Crashtech Editorial August 3, 2026 AI Business & Money

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