Alibaba Launches Qwen 3.5 — The First Agentic-Native Foundation Model

Qwen 3.5 is the first major model pretrained specifically for agentic multimodal workflows from the first training stage, not fine-tuned after the fact. 397B total / 17B active parameters (MoE architecture), 256K context window, 201 languages. Ships with Qwen Code (terminal agent) and Qwen-Agent framework built in. Performance benchmarks show 60% cheaper and 8x faster inference than Qwen 3. The "agentic-native" framing matters: this is how all future foundation models will be built — tool use, planning, and multi-step execution as first-class training objectives rather than afterthoughts. CNBC · GitHub