Qwen3.5 122B and 35B models offer Sonnet 4.5 performance on local computers
venturebeat.com
February 28, 2026
5 min read
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66/100
Summary
Alibaba released the Qwen3.5 Medium Model series, which includes four large language models (LLMs) that support agentic tool calling. Three of these models, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B, Qwen3.5-122B-A10B, and Qwen3.5-27B, are available for commercial use under the Apache 2.0 license and can be downloaded from Hugging Face and ModelScope.
Key Takeaways
- Alibaba released the Qwen3.5 Medium Model series, which includes four large language models that support agentic tool calling and are available under the Apache 2.0 open source license.
- The Qwen3.5-35B-A3B model can exceed a 1 million token context length on consumer-grade GPUs with 32GB of VRAM, offering high performance comparable to proprietary models from major U.S. startups.
- Qwen 3.5 features a "Thinking Mode" that generates an internal reasoning chain before providing answers, enhancing its logical processing capabilities.
- The models maintain high accuracy even when quantized to 4-bit weights, significantly reducing memory footprint for local deployment.
Community Sentiment
Positives
- The new 35B model demonstrates great performance for tool use, indicating its practical applications in various domains.
- Opus 4.6 and Gemini Pro deliver satisfactory results quickly, showcasing the potential for local AI models to provide valuable insights.
Concerns
- Running the Qwen 3.5 model on local hardware resulted in a lengthy 45-minute processing time with a generic answer, raising concerns about efficiency.
- There are slight incompatibilities with Claude Code in the new 35B model, which could hinder seamless integration for developers.
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