Qwen 3.8 Max
Qwen 3.8 Max is Alibaba Cloud's most capable Qwen model, a 2.4-trillion-parameter Mixture-of-Experts model that handles text and vision-language work in one endpoint within a context window of 1M tokens. Your use is subject to Alibaba Cloud's Terms & Privacy Policies.
import { streamText } from 'ai'
const result = streamText({ model: 'alibaba/qwen3.8-max', prompt: 'Why is the sky blue?'})Playground
Try out Qwen 3.8 Max by Alibaba Cloud. Usage is billed to your team at API rates. Free users (those who haven't made a payment) get $5 of credits every 30 days.
Qwen 3.8 Max
Qwen 3.8 Max
Providers
Route requests across multiple providers. Copy a provider slug to set your preference. Visit the docs for more info. Using a provider means you agree to their terms, listed under Legal.
P50 throughput on live AI Gateway traffic, in tokens per second (TPS). Visit the docs for more info.
P50 time to first token (TTFT) on live AI Gateway traffic, in milliseconds. View the docs for more info.
Direct request success rate on AI Gateway and per-provider. Visit the docs for more info.
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| 991K | 1.2s | 135tps | $0.03/M+2 more | $0.13/M+2 more | Read: $0.01/M+2 more Write: $0.04/M+2 more | — | +2 | | 07/28/2026 | ||||
| 1M | 0.9s | 296tps | $0.32/M | $1.28/M | Read:$0.08/M Write:$0.5/M | — | +2 |   | 06/02/2026 | ||||
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| 1M | 1.0s | 115tps | $0.50/M+1 more | $3/M+1 more | Read: $0.1/M+1 more Write: $0.63/M+1 more | — | +1 | | 04/02/2026 | ||||
| 1M | 1.2s | 314tps | $0.10/M | $0.40/M | Read:$0.0/M Write:$0.13/M | — | +1 | | 02/24/2026 | ||||
| 262K | 0.7s | 54tps | $0.20/M | $0.88/M | Read:$0.11/M Write:— | — |   | 09/23/2025 |
About Qwen 3.8 Max
Qwen 3.8 Max is the Max-tier release in Alibaba Cloud's Qwen 3.8 generation, released August 2, 2026 and available through Alibaba Cloud on AI Gateway. Qwen 3.8 Max uses a Mixture-of-Experts architecture with 2.4 trillion parameters, accepts text, images, and video, and works within a context window of 1M tokens with up to 128K tokens per response.
Alibaba Cloud positions Qwen 3.8 Max as its most capable Qwen model to date, with significant gains over the Qwen 3.7 series. Handling text-only and vision-language work in a single endpoint removes the usual split between a text flagship and a separate vision model. Target workloads include software engineering and office productivity, plus visual tasks: turning screenshots or design files into working pages, captioning video, and answering questions grounded in an image.
Hybrid thinking mode is enabled by default. Turn thinking off per request for short lookups, or cap the thinking budget when latency and token spend matter more than reasoning depth. Reasoning traces can carry across turns, so long agent loops keep their chain of thought through repeated tool calls. Qwen 3.8 Max supports function calling and structured output, and Alibaba Cloud also documents built-in web search and code execution tools for the model.
Qwen 3.8 Max accepts up to 2,048 image URLs or 250 base64 images per request, video up to two hours or 2 GB, and as many as 64 videos. Each image consumes tokens in proportion to its resolution, so downscale assets that don't need full detail.
You can integrate Qwen 3.8 Max through AI SDK, Chat Completions API, Responses API, Messages API, or other API formats, from TypeScript or Python. To drive a coding agent with Qwen 3.8 Max, run vercel ai-gateway coding-agents setup to connect Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, or Pi, then select alibaba/qwen3.8-max inside the agent.
What To Consider When Choosing a Provider
- Configuration: Qwen 3.8 Max sits at the top of the Qwen lineup, so per-token cost is the highest in the family. Send the requests that need flagship reasoning here and route bulk classification or extraction to a Flash-tier model. See the pricing panel on this page for current rates.
- Configuration: Thinking is enabled by default, which adds reasoning tokens to every response. Long agent loops that chain many tool calls multiply that overhead, so tune the thinking budget before running production traffic at scale.
- Zero Data Retention: AI Gateway supports Zero Data Retention for this model via direct gateway requests (BYOK is not included). To configure this, check the documentation.
- Authentication: AI Gateway authenticates requests using an API key or OIDC token. You do not need to manage provider credentials directly.
When to Use Qwen 3.8 Max
Best for
- Multi-File Software Engineering: Refactoring, diff editing, and repository-wide changes with flagship reasoning
- Screenshot And Design To Code: Turning screenshots or design files into working pages
- Video And Visual Q&A: Captioning long clips and answering questions grounded in an image
- Office Productivity Automation: Document, spreadsheet, and workflow tasks that mix text with visual input
- Unified Text And Vision Pipelines: One endpoint for both text-only and vision-language requests
Consider alternatives when
- Cost-Sensitive Bulk Work: Qwen3.7-Flash handles high-volume classification and extraction for less
- Balanced Quality And Cost: Qwen3.7-Plus covers most multimodal tasks below the Max tier
- Previous-Generation Parity: Qwen3.7-Max already handles long-horizon agent loops in the 3.7 line
- Image Or Video Generation: A generation-class model fits tasks that produce pixels rather than read them
Conclusion
Qwen 3.8 Max is Alibaba Cloud's most capable Qwen release, combining text and vision-language work in one endpoint with a Mixture-of-Experts architecture at 2.4 trillion parameters and a context window of 1M tokens. Point alibaba/qwen3.8-max at AI Gateway to run flagship reasoning, screenshot-to-code, and long-video workloads behind a single API key.