Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by notnullorvoid on Sunday July 19, 2026 @11:14AM
(#48968903)
Always nice to see more open-weights in the heavy model class. I can only hope this trend continues, causing OpenAI and Anthropic to crash and burn.
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Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by blfr on Sunday July 19, 2026 @11:23AM
(#48968983)
As much as I dislike 'em, this sounds mean spirited. And Alibaba admits in this very tweet that Fable is next level (it is).
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by Hamuko on Sunday July 19, 2026 @11:37AM
(#48969098)
I want as much misfortune as possible to befall OpenAI and Sam Altman after what they did to the memory market.
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by brap on Sunday July 19, 2026 @11:59AM
(#48969279)
How dare they buy things
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by undersuit on Sunday July 19, 2026 @12:25PM
(#48969485)
But they didn't. The deal to buy 40% of the world's memory never happened after the price increases the news generated.
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by brap on Sunday July 19, 2026 @02:48PM
(#48970692)
How dare they not buy things
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by gunalx on Sunday July 19, 2026 @04:35PM
(#48971470)
How dare they claim to buy stuff to boost their standing while actually just faking the entire thing.
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by notnullorvoid on Sunday July 19, 2026 @01:58PM
(#48970271)
I dislike their practices, but the main motivation for hoping they'll crash is that I think their immense overvaluation posses too much economic risk.
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by yeodev on Sunday July 19, 2026 @11:32AM
(#48969058)
Same, you can think of China whatever you want but they're really good at giving big tech a reality check when it comes to AI. We now got a pretty wide range of open-weight models (from DeepSeek and MiMo over to Kimi K3, Qwen 3.8 & GLM-5.2) and I think it's most important that there's a variance not only between quality / intelligence and also cost.
I mean even the cheapest option for Luna is still more expensive than anything DS or MiMo is offering right now and I think a new Ministral model would also hit hard there because we also need some variance in model sources, we can't rely only on the US and China.
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by glimshe on Sunday July 19, 2026 @11:39AM
(#48969119)
"China" isn't giving anything. These are Chinese companies leveraging their best competitive strategy at the moment: competing on price.
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by derektank on Sunday July 19, 2026 @12:02PM
(#48969292)
Those Chinese companies are being funded by a substantial amount of government financing, I think at least 20% has come directly from state owned investment firms or government entities and probably more now. You obviously lose precision when you’re talking in sweeping terms like “China” but I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable in this case. The Chinese government is playing a much more direct role in AI investment and research than other nations.
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by glimshe on Sunday July 19, 2026 @12:40PM
(#48969597)
Nonetheless, the government isn't giving it away either. If China had a monopoly on the technology, or simply winning in quality, open weight models would never have seen the light of the day.
I just want to dispell the silly notion of altruism from China in this conversation.
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by rikima_ on Sunday July 19, 2026 @09:47PM
(#48973535)
Bad chyna
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by satvikpendem on Sunday July 19, 2026 @03:47PM
(#48971155)
The Chinese government is explicitly calling for open weight AI models, which influence its companies.
Re:Qwen3.8 is launching and going open-weight soon
by catigula on Sunday July 19, 2026 @11:36AM
(#48969096)
Damaging American AI companies just means that China has the lead with closed models.
China isn’t an altruistic state. They’re an aggressor in many fields, economic and otherwise, and this one of them.