Ali Qianwen app public beta ignites the software sector: Both valuation and profitability have bottomed out, AI applications are accelerating implementation, and the industry shows early signs of recovery!
With Alibaba announcing the public beta launch of its AI application “Qianwen,” a race to transition artificial intelligence from enterprise (B-end) to consumer (C-end) has officially begun. This milestone not only ignited the capital market’s enthusiasm for AI application commercialization, but also injected new energy into the long-underperforming software sector, signaling a potential dawn of industry recovery.
On November 16, Alibaba officially announced that its flagship AI application was rebranded from “Tongyi” to “Qianwen” and opened public testing. The market reaction was immediate. Stimulated by the launch of the Qianwen app, AI application stocks surged collectively, with multiple software-related stocks hitting daily limits. This reflects investors’ optimistic expectations for rapid application deployment by leading AI model companies, while also indicating the market’s active search for a turning point in the software industry’s prosperity after prior adjustments.
Analysts believe the launch of Alibaba’s Qianwen app signifies a shift in its AI strategy from heavy-asset expansion to efficient monetization. In a report, Huaxi Securities stated, “We believe that with the latest quarterly report showing Alibaba Cloud’s AI revenue growth exceeding expectations, AI products are gradually becoming the core driving force for Alibaba Cloud’s growth. The ‘Tongyi’ app has officially completed its brand upgrade and changed its name to ‘Qianwen,’ with the software version upgraded from 3.60.0 to 5.0.0, marking the product’s entry into a new development stage. At present, we believe it’s important to focus on Alibaba’s breakthroughs in AI from B-end to C-end, with consumer AI applications expected to become a major breakthrough direction by 2026.”
Meanwhile, according to China Fund News, Huawei will release a breakthrough AI technology on November 21, aimed at solving the challenge of computing resource utilization efficiency. Through software innovation, the new technology can significantly increase the utilization rate of computing resources such as GPU and NPU from the industry average of 30–40% to 70%, vastly unlocking the potential of computing hardware.
The technology reportedly enables unified resource management and utilization of Nvidia, Ascend, and other third-party computing power, masking hardware differences and providing more efficient resource support for AI training and inference.
Notably, Huawei’s technical route this time has similarities with Israeli AI startup Run:ai. Since its founding in 2018, Run:ai has focused on GPU scheduling technology, aiming to build a platform capable of splitting and parallelizing AI models. Its core product is a software platform built on Kubernetes, optimizing GPU utilization through dynamic scheduling, pooling, and partitioning technologies. The company was acquired by Nvidia at the end of 2024 for $700 million, highlighting the strategic value of computing resource scheduling technology in the AI industry.
Alibaba’s Strategic Shift: Going All In on the Consumer Super Entrance
The release of the Qianwen app marks a major upgrade in Alibaba’s AI strategy. According to media reports, following AI infrastructure and Taobao Flash Sale, this is another group-level strategic project announced by Alibaba this year, personally decided by CEO Wu Yongming, aiming to create a native AI super consumer application hub.
The rebranding from “Tongyi” to “Qianwen” is a carefully planned brand unification move, intended to directly associate the influential “Qwen” model brand in the developer community with a consumer-facing product. According to a Wallstreetcn article, insiders revealed that Alibaba plans to integrate several of its AI applications under the “Qianwen” brand, developing a one-stop app preferred by consumers, and will gradually add agent-like AI features to support shopping experiences on platforms such as Taobao in the future.
The current public beta version not only incorporates Alibaba’s most powerful Qwen3-Max model, but also features minimalist design and enables online search by default to ensure information timeliness, aiming to address the inherent “hallucination” problem of large models. This move signifies Alibaba’s full-scale participation in the competition with ByteDance’s “Doubao,” Tencent’s “Yuanbao,” and other apps to capture scarce user attention in the AI era.
Industry Sentiment Recovers as Results Beat Expectations
Previously, the “AI Eating Software” rhetoric propagated by Bloomberg, Reuters, and other foreign media had cast a shadow over the computer software sector, heightening investor caution. However, the latest industry earnings reports have dispelled these concerns.
According to research from Guosheng Securities, multiple leading computer companies performed excellently in Q3 2025, with visibly accelerated growth. The report shows that companies such as Kingsoft Office, Hikvision, Sangfor, and Hithink RoyalFlush saw notable improvements in quarter-on-quarter revenue or net profit growth compared to Q2. For example, Kingsoft Office’s Q3 net profit attributable to shareholders grew by 35.42% year-on-year, substantially surpassing Q2’s -2.83%, mainly due to the rollout of new AI products and acceleration of innovation-focused businesses. This indicates that for companies with strong core competitiveness and execution, AI is not a “devourer” but rather an “enabler” for growth.
Institutional Positioning at a Low Point, New Policies and Regulations as Potential Catalysts
From a capital allocation perspective, the software industry is at a favorable starting point. According to fund Q3 heavy position data, the computing sector accounted for only 2.68% of total market value in 2025Q3, a relatively low point in recent years, and has declined for two consecutive quarters. Meanwhile, sector gains so far this year lag behind other tech sectors like communications and electronics.
Guosheng Securities believes this “underweight” status may turn around. The China Securities Regulatory Commission has recently solicited comments on the “Guidelines for Performance Benchmark Indices for Publicly Raised Securities Investment Funds,” aiming to strengthen the binding role of performance benchmarks and limit excessive deviation in fund investment styles.
Analysts believe that once the new regulation is implemented, it will benefit currently underweighted sectors like computing, possibly redirecting capital flows. In addition, favorable policies such as plans issued by the National Development and Reform Commission for comprehensive digital transformation of smart cities, and directives from State Council meetings to accelerate scenario cultivation, provide solid support for sustained industry prosperity.
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