Alibaba Reportedly Plans Revenue-Sharing Model for Large Commercial Qwen AI Users
Alibaba reportedly plans to introduce a revenue-sharing model for large commercial users of its next-generation Qwen open-source AI models, such as Qwen3.8-Max. This licensing shift mirrors a similar strategy recently implemented by Moonshot AI for its Kimi K3 model. This move signals a significant shift in how open-weight AI models are monetized, moving away from entirely free local deployment toward a "freemium" commercial licensing model. It could set a precedent for other major AI developers looking to recoup massive training costs from high-earning enterprise users. Under Moonshot AI's terms, companies generating over $20 million annually from services built on Kimi K3 must pay up to a 30% revenue share, and Alibaba is expected to announce similar terms soon. While developers previously only paid when hosting models on Alibaba Cloud, this new policy would apply even to those running the models in their own data centers.
## BACKGROUND
Qwen (Tongyi Qianwen) is a family of large language models developed by Alibaba Cloud, with its latest Qwen3.8-Max scaling to 2.4 trillion parameters. Open-weight models allow developers to download and run the model's trained parameters locally, giving them control over customization without relying on external APIs, though licensing terms dictate how they can be commercialized.