Alibaba's Qwen AI Team Releases Powerful Open-Source Coding Model Amidst Global Tech Developments
In a week marked by significant advancements across various technological sectors, Alibaba's Qwen AI team unveiled Qwen3-Coder-Next, a specialized 80-billion-parameter model designed for efficient agentic performance. This release positions Alibaba as a leading force in open-source AI development, rivaling proprietary U.S. models from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, according to VentureBeat. The model is available under a permissive Apache 2.0 license, enabling commercial use.
The Qwen team has been actively releasing powerful large language models and specialized multimodal models over the past year, challenging the dominance of U.S.-based AI developers. Qwen3-Coder-Next specifically targets the growing trend of "vibe coding," offering developers a lightweight yet powerful tool for various applications.
Meanwhile, in other tech news, Notepad++ developers announced on February 2, 2026, that their update infrastructure had been compromised between June and September 2025 due to a hosting provider level incident, according to a statement released by Notepad++ and reported by Hacker News. Attackers reportedly maintained access to internal services until December 2025. Security researchers identified multiple execution chains and payloads associated with the attack, spanning from late July to October 2025.
In the realm of space exploration, the rivalry between NASA and China's space agency is intensifying, as reported by Hacker News. China's Mengzhou spacecraft is putting pressure on NASA's lunar timeframe. The Lanyue lunar lander underwent engine testing in China's Hebei province in 2025, signaling China's continued commitment to lunar missions.
Elsewhere, in the mining industry, Allonnia, a startup company, is testing a new process at the Eagle Mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to extract nickel from lower-quality ore. According to MIT Technology Review, the mine's owner installed shipping containers at the mine's mill earlier this year where a fermentation-derived broth developed by Allonnia is mixed with concentrated ore to capture and remove impurities. Kent Sorenson, Allonnia's chief technology officer, stated that this approach could help companies continue operating sites with declining ore quality.
Alibaba is also making strides in database technology with AliSQL, a MySQL branch forked from official MySQL and used extensively within Alibaba Group's production environment, according to Hacker News. AliSQL 8.0.44 (LTS) integrates DuckDB as a native storage engine, allowing users to operate DuckDB with the same experience as MySQL. This integration enables rapid deployment of DuckDB service nodes for lightweight analytical capabilities.
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