Something is afoot in the land of Qwen
simonwillison.net
March 4, 2026
4 min read
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72/100
Summary
Alibaba's Qwen team has released the Qwen 3.5 family of open weight models. Junyang Lin, the lead researcher, announced his departure from the team via Twitter.
Key Takeaways
- Alibaba's Qwen team released the Qwen 3.5 family of open weight models, including sizes ranging from 0.8B to 397B, with notable performance in coding tasks.
- Junyang Lin, the lead researcher for Qwen, announced his resignation amid a company reorganization, triggering additional departures from the team.
- Alibaba's CEO addressed employees in an emergency meeting, indicating the company's awareness of the significance of the recent resignations.
- The Qwen 3.5 models have received positive feedback for their effectiveness, particularly the smaller models, which are capable of multi-modal reasoning.
Community Sentiment
Positives
- Qwen3.5 is an impressive model, demonstrating strong capabilities in coding tasks with minimal guidance, which could enhance developer productivity.
- The model's ability to write tests that pass without cheating indicates a high level of reliability and understanding of coding principles.
Concerns
- Some users report disappointing experiences with the new Qwen model, suggesting it may not effectively utilize standard coding tools, raising concerns about its practical utility.
- There are worries that the models might be overfit to evaluation metrics, which could limit their real-world applicability and effectiveness.
