Alibaba launches AI model Wan 2.1 for video and image generation

Alibaba has made its latest artificial intelligence model for video and image generation, Wan 2.1, publicly available, a move that is expected to accelerate adoption and intensify competition in the AI space.

The Chinese e-commerce giant announced on Wednesday that the model is now open-source, making it accessible to researchers, developers, and businesses worldwide, Reuters reported.

This decision follows a growing industry trend where major tech firms are releasing AI models to the public to drive innovation and expand their influence in the AI ecosystem.

Wan 2.1 is designed to generate high-quality images and videos from text and image inputs.

Alibaba has released four different versions of the model—T2V-1.3B, T2V-14B, I2V-14B-720P, and I2V-14B-480P—each capable of handling varying levels of complexity.

The "14B" in the naming structure indicates that some versions of the model can process up to 14 billion parameters, allowing for more sophisticated and accurate outputs.

These models are now available on Alibaba Cloud's ModelScope and AI platform Hugging Face, catering to a broad audience, including academic researchers and commercial enterprises.

Alibaba's move comes as competition in the AI industry heats up.

Earlier this year, AI startup DeepSeek made waves by releasing a low-cost open-source AI model that delivered performance comparable to industry leaders such as OpenAI.

Alibaba is aiming to position itself as a key player in the AI landscape by offering an advanced, publicly available model that could attract developers and businesses looking for alternatives to proprietary AI systems.

The company has been actively enhancing its AI capabilities.

In January, it introduced the latest version of its AI-powered visual generation model, initially named Wanx before being shortened to Wan.

The model has since secured a top spot on VBench, a leaderboard for video generation models, where it excels in features like multi-object interaction and complex scene composition.

Beyond AI model releases, Alibaba is making significant financial commitments to its cloud and AI infrastructure.

The company announced this week that it will invest at least 380 billion yuan ($52 billion) over the next three years to strengthen its capabilities in cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

This investment aligns with its broader strategy to remain competitive against global tech giants, particularly in the fields of generative AI and machine learning.

Additionally, Alibaba has previewed its upcoming reasoning model, QwQ-Max, which it plans to make open-source upon full launch.

This move reinforces the company’s commitment to democratizing AI research while expanding its influence in the global AI industry.