Rival Realities: AIs New Year Clash
China's AI Giants Showcase Divergent Paths in Fierce Lunar New Year Showdown The Lunar New Year holiday, traditionally a time for family reunions and cultural festivities, has evolved into a new arena for China's technology titans to demonstrate their latest artificial intelligence capabilities. In a concentrated burst of activity during the Spring Festival period, industry leaders Alibaba and ByteDance unveiled significant advancements, highlighting two distinct strategic approaches dominating the global AI landscape: foundational model efficiency and massive, real-world consumer application. The week surrounding the February 16th New Year's Eve saw both companies launch high-profile initiatives. Alibaba's DAMO Academy made a strategic open-source release of its Qwen3.5-Plus model, claiming a breakthrough in performance-per-parameter that challenges established scaling laws. Simultaneously, ByteDance's Doubao AI assistant integrated deeply with China's most-w...