Alibaba launches flagship AI model Qwen 4 Max
Chinese tech giant Alibaba has opened early access to its next-generation flagship language model, Qwen4-Max-Preview. The new model is designed for complex, multistep tasks, programming, and autonomous operation as part of AI agents.
Technical capabilities
In Qwen 4 Max, reasoning mode is enabled by default. Developers can adjust how deeply the model considers a prompt through the API using the reasoning_effort parameter. The available levels are low, medium, and xhigh. The latter is used by default.
The new model has a context window of 1 million tokens, allowing users to load large codebases or extensive documentation in a single prompt. It can generate up to 393, 216 tokens, a limit shared between the neural network’s internal reasoning and its final answer.
The model is natively multimodal and can analyze text, images, and videos, returning results as text, including in JSON format. It also supports web search and external function calls. Its API is compatible with OpenAI Chat Completions, OpenAI Responses, and Anthropic Messages, making it easier to integrate the model into development tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, and Qoder.
First impressions
Although no official test results are available, developers are already trying the new model on real-world tasks. In early tests, it handled the creation of interactive interfaces and small games, though results varied across individual tests.
Access details
Qwen 4 Max is available as a cloud preview. Alibaba has yet to publish official benchmark results, the number of parameters, or weights for local deployment. API early access will run until the end of November 25, Beijing time, after which the preview will be discontinued. Alibaba has not announced a release date for the final version.
You can try the new model on the web and in the Qwen Chat app, as well as in QwenStudio, QwenWork, and Qoder. API access is available only with a Token Plan subscription. On the international QwenCloud service, the Lite plan costs $6 per month and includes 20, 000 credits. The Essential plan is also available for $10 (45, 000 credits), the Standard plan for $18 (80, 000 credits), and the Pro plan for $43 (200, 000 credits) per month.
