Alibaba has announced that its video and image-generating AI model, Wan 2.1, is now publicly available as open-source software.
This move is expected to increase its adoption and intensify competition in the AI sector.
Alibaba said it is open-sourcing four models from its Wan 2.1 series, the latest version of its foundational AI model capable of generating images and videos from text and image inputs.
These models will be available on Alibaba Cloud’s ModelScope and Hugging Face, a major AI model repository, and will be accessible to academics, researchers, and commercial institutions worldwide.
Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares closed nearly 5% higher.
Open-source AI technology has gained attention since Chinese firm DeepSeek disrupted global markets in January, claiming its AI model was trained at a fraction of the cost of leading competitors and on less-advanced Nvidia chips.
Like Alibaba’s, DeepSeek’s model is open-source, allowing others to download and modify it.
Unlike proprietary models from companies like OpenAI, open-source AI does not directly generate revenue.
However, it helps drive innovation and foster a community around the technology.
