Alibaba, Chinese tech companies unveil next-gen AI innovations at WAIC 2025

At the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), Alibaba and several other Chinese tech companies unveiled AI innovations that are taking AI to the next level.

The 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China witnessed Alibaba Cloud and several other Chinese tech companies showcase their latest innovations in AI, in what can be also considered as a strong signal to Western AI companies on the capabilities of Chinese tech companies.

Among the innovations highlighted by Alibaba at WAIC include an LLM solution powered by Qwen and specifically designed for intelligent automotive cockpits, developed in collaboration with global semiconductor leader Qualcomm and Banma. At the heart of the system is Yan AI, Banma’s intelligent assistant, which leverages Qwen’s advanced language understanding, visual processing, and contextual reasoning to enable seamless human-vehicle interaction.

Alibaba also debuted Quark AI Glasses, its first self-developed smart eyewear. Seamlessly powered by the Qwen large language model and Quark’s multimodal AI capabilities, the device is designed to serve as an intelligent, all-day wearable assistant that blends style, comfort, and functionality. Quark AI Glasses are scheduled for official release in China by the end of 2025, marking a significant step in Alibaba’s vision to bring ambient, context-aware AI into daily life.

“The innovations underscore Alibaba’s growing role as a leader in applied generative AI, delivering intelligent solutions that are not only technologically advanced but deeply integrated into everyday experiences and industrial workflows,” said Jingren Zhou, CTO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

Apart from Alibaba, Tencent unveiled its Hunyuan 3D World Model 1.0, an open-source AI model capable of generating detailed three-dimensional environments. The latest Hunyuan model could create interactive, 360-degree virtual 3D scenes using natural language prompts or image inputs, thus significantly simplifying the production process for virtual reality experiences and video games.

According to a statement by Tencent, Hunyuan is the industry’s first open-source 3D world-generation AI fully compatible with “CG pipelines” – the standard workflow used for creating 3D graphics and animations in film production, gaming and visual effects.

Meanwhile, SenseTime, another Chinese AI company, launched SenseNova V6.5, a new generation of its proprietary AI model series. Interestingly, SenseTime claims SenseNova V6.5 outperforms some of its US peers such as Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro and Anthropic’s Claude 4-Sonnet.

World AI Cooperation

Apart from the innovations, the Chinese government has proposed the establishment of a world AI cooperation organization as part of its efforts to bolster open, inclusive and equitable artificial intelligence development and governance globally.

According to a report by Reuters, Chinese Premier Li Qiang announced the initiative when addressing Saturday's opening ceremony of the summit and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance in Shanghai. The report stated that Li emphasized the need for collaborative approaches to global AI governance to ensure that intelligent technologies are developed for the good of all.

The suggestion by Li comes at an interesting time as the US continues to mount restrictions on some components being sent to China. There is also growing concern on how the impact of tariffs could impact business and trade between the two countries.

However, the Chinese Premier focused more on the dealing with the challenges and risks from AI development which he said is an urgent need for further consolidating towards a societal consensus on how to achieve a balance between development and security in the AI sector.

Li also noted that China places great importance on global AI governance and actively participates in promoting multilateral and bilateral cooperation in this regard, the premier said the nation is willing to offer more Chinese solutions to the international community and contribute more Chinese wisdom to global AI governance.

As Chair of the ASEAN committee, the Malaysian delegation also voiced out that the overarching goal is to bridge the digital divide among nations and enhance digital collaboration to ensure the development and governance of emerging technologies benefit humanity

On the regional front, Malaysia, as the 2025 ASEAN Chair, is spearheading the ASEAN AI Safety Network and leading the conversation on AI safety. The Network will act as ASEAN’ s regional platform for AI safety, facilitating best practice exchanges, research collaboration, standards development and responsible AI adoption.