๐ฆReddit r/LocalLLaMAโขStalecollected in 6h
Qwen3.5 Models Spotted on Chat

๐กEarly spot of Qwen3.5 could mean new SOTA open model โ check before official launch
โก 30-Second TL;DR
What Changed
New Qwen3.5 models detected on Qwen chat
Why It Matters
Signals next-gen Qwen iteration, potentially challenging Llama and Mistral on benchmarks. Boosts open-source LLM race.
What To Do Next
Check Qwen chat interface now for model access and test prompts.
Who should care:Developers & AI Engineers
๐ง Deep Insight
Web-grounded analysis with 7 cited sources.
๐ Enhanced Key Takeaways
- โขQwen3.5 was officially released by Alibaba on February 16-17, 2026, just before Lunar New Year, featuring native multimodal capabilities for text, images, and videos across 200+ languages.[1][2][3]
- โขThe flagship Qwen3.5-397B-A17B model ranks #3 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index with a score of 45, outperforming prior Qwen models and unifying vision-language processing in a single architecture.[3][4]
- โขQwen3.5 deploys AI agents up to 5x faster than OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude, generates 3D games and websites, analyzes medical imagery, and costs 60% less than Qwen2.5.[2]
๐ Competitor Analysisโธ Show
| Feature/Model | Qwen3.5-397B-A17B | GLM-5 | Kimi K2.5 | Qwen3-235B |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence Index | 45 (#3) | 50 (#1) | 47 (#2) | Lower (prior gen) |
| Active Params | 17B (MoE) | 32B | 32B | 22B |
| Multimodal | Native (text/image/video) | Yes | Yes | Separate VL line |
| Context Window | 262K (ext. 1M) | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| License | Apache 2.0 (open weights) | N/A | N/A | Apache 2.0 |
| Pricing | 60% cheaper than Qwen2.5 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
๐ ๏ธ Technical Deep Dive
- โขArchitecture: Transformer-based Hybrid Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) with Gated DeltaNet layers, 512 total experts (10 routed + 1 shared per token), 60 layers, gated attention (32 Q heads, 2 KV heads, head dim 256).[3]
- โขParameters: 397B total, 17B active; vocabulary 248,320; supports multi-token prediction (MTP) and YaRN RoPE scaling up to 1,010,000 tokens context.[3][4]
- โขVision: Early fusion Vision Transformer (ViT) encoder integrated with MoE language model for native image/video understanding; trained on trillions of multimodal tokens across 201 languages.[3]
- โขDeployment: Available on Hugging Face, NVIDIA NIM (02/16/2026), Qwen Chat, Alibaba API; Qwen3.5-Plus variant offers 1M context and tool use.[3][4][7]
๐ฎ Future ImplicationsAI analysis grounded in cited sources
Qwen3.5 will accelerate open-weight multimodal adoption
Its #3 Intelligence Index ranking, native vision unification, and Apache 2.0 license position it as a cost-effective leader among open models, driving developer workflows.[4]
Alibaba's agent speed claims will pressure Western LLM pricing
5x faster agent deployment at 60% lower cost than predecessors challenges OpenAI/Claude dominance in enterprise automation.[2]
More Qwen3.5 sizes will release by mid-2026
GitHub announcement states 'More sizes are coming' after the initial 397B-A17B MoE model.[7]
โณ Timeline
2023-04
Qwen beta launched as Tongyi Qianwen by Alibaba.
2023-09
Qwen opened to public use after regulatory clearance.
2025-01
Qwen2.5-VL released with 3B-72B variants.
2025-09
Qwen3 series launched including Qwen3-Max, Qwen3-Next, Omni, VL.
2026-01
Qwen3-Max-Thinking and Qwen3-Coder-Next released.
2026-02
Qwen3.5 series debuted with 397B-A17B MoE model.
๐ Sources (7)
Factual claims are grounded in the sources below. Forward-looking analysis is AI-generated interpretation.
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Original source: Reddit r/LocalLLaMA โ


