700 Million Downloads: Alibaba Qwen Becomes Most Used Open-Source AI on Hugging Face 2026
Alibaba Qwen downloads Hugging Face statistics reach 700 million as of January 2026, leading the global open-source AI market over Meta and OpenAI.
700 million downloads and counting. Alibaba Cloud's flagship Qwen model family is now officially the world's most widely used open-source AI system. As of January 2026, the Chinese tech giant's models have outpaced global rivals, signaling a massive shift in the developer ecosystem.
Alibaba Qwen downloads Hugging Face dominance
Data from the developer platform Hugging Face, reported by AIBase on Friday, highlights an unprecedented lead. In December alone, Qwen's estimated downloads surpassed the combined total of the next eight most popular models on the platform globally.
- 1st place: Alibaba Qwen (Exceeded total of next 8 models combined)
- Competing models: Meta Platforms (Llama), OpenAI, and Chinese startups like Zhipu AI
This isn't just a numbers game; it's about real-world utility. Tens of thousands of applications have been built using Qwen. The lightweight Qwen2.5-1.5B-Instruct variant was the single most downloaded model back in October, showing the high demand for efficient, deployable AI within the international developer community.
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