Alibaba's Qwen models have made it an AI powerhouse, but the company has struggled to turn their global popularity into a profitable business
THE SO WHAT
Qwen’s global traction without clear monetization is the open-source paradox in one case study—developer love doesn’t automatically translate into margin. If you’re building on or offering open models, your edge has to be distribution, integration, or data moats, not the weights themselves.
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