Qwen 3.5

The Asian Giant: All-encompassing Intelligence. Breaking benchmark records with overwhelming performance and practical multimodal capabilities - Detailed Analysis Report

Last Surveyed: January 31, 2026

Qwen 3.5-Max

Alibaba Cloud | Release: December 2025

💰 Pricing (API In) $0.20 / 1M tokens
🔗 API (Output) $0.60 / 1M tokens
🆓 Free Tier Available (via Model Studio)
⚡ Reasoning Accuracy SOTA (HLE Benchmark #1)
💻 Specialization Advanced Scientific Research / Multilingual Translation
👁️ Unique Features Adaptive Tool-Use / Vision v2
🤝 Architecture Dense/Sparse Hybrid

👤 AI Persona

Qwen Persona

"A knowledgeable and far-sighted sage of the East"

⭐ Overall Rating

✨ Unique Features

  • Humanity's Last Exam (HLE) SOTA: Recorded scores exceeding GPT-5 levels in complex academic knowledge tests. One of the highest peaks of existing intelligence.
  • Adaptive Tool-Use: Implements "cognitive flexibility," autonomously choosing between search, code execution, and external APIs depending on the problem.
  • Multilingual Mastery: Understanding of context and nuances in Asian languages (particularly Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) surpasses other models.
  • Sparse-Attention v2: Maintains high-speed retrieval with minimal information loss even in ultra-long contexts exceeding 1 million tokens.

📈 Benchmark Comparison

🆚 vs GPT-5.2 (Thinking)

Academic KnowledgeQwen 3.5 Wins
Inference SpeedGPT-5.2 is Blazing Fast
VersatilityNearly Equal

🆚 vs DeepSeek V3

Math/ScienceDeepSeek Leads
Agent CapabilitiesQwen 3.5 is Superior
Cost PerformanceDeepSeek is Stronger

📝 Executive Summary

Qwen 3.5-Max is the "world-class" reasoning model unleashed by Alibaba Cloud.

It achieved SOTA on the ultra-challenging "HLE" benchmark, demonstrating incredible power in analyzing complex papers and solving intricate logic puzzles. While its inference speed is quite heavy (slow), the density and accuracy of each response are extremely high, garnering absolute support from researchers and business leaders who prioritize "correctness over speed."

💰 Pricing Details

  • API Pricing: Input $0.20 / Output $0.60 (per 1M tokens) *Shockingly low pricing rivaling DeepSeek
  • Model Studio: Provides a free quota for a limited period for developers.
  • Tongyi Qianwen: Offers the highest level of conversational experience for free via the general user app/web interface.

🎯 Key Benchmark Results

Indicator Score Evaluation
HLE (Humanity's Last Exam) 58.3 World #1
GPQA Diamond High Excellent
Context Window 1M+ Above Industry Standard

✅ Pros and Cons

👍 Pros

  • World-class academic reasoning ability and "persistence" against difficult problems.
  • Defiant low-cost performance that overwhelms flagship models from other companies.
  • Extremely natural expression in Japanese and Chinese, optimized for Asian languages and cultures.

👎 Cons

  • Inference process (thinking) is long, making it too heavy for real-time casual chat.
  • Strict censorship filters operate on topics related to politics and social affairs.
  • Occasional hallucinations caused by extreme "overthinking" in complex instructions.

💭 Reddit User Sentiment

Mixed 3.4 / 5.0
Source: Based on an analysis of 150 posts from r/LocalLLaMA and r/MachineLearning

Positive Comments

"I had it read an extremely difficult paper on quantum mechanics, and it provided deeper, more critical insights than GPT-5."
"There is no better partner when it comes to business customs and legal knowledge in the Asian region."

Negative Comments

"I recognize its performance, but it's just so slow. Waiting nearly a minute for it to 'think' before answering a single question is painful today."
"Questions about Taiwan or geopolitical issues results in an immediate refusal to answer. Not a partner for free discussion."

🎯 Recommended Use Cases

  1. Critical Reading of Advanced Tech Papers - Decoding documents that require deep expertise.
  2. Review of Multinational Contracts (especially Asian region) - Legal and practical checks across language barriers.
  3. Building Complex Logical Agents - Autonomous problem-solving using intelligence as a weapon.

📊 Conclusion & Overall Rating

Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (3.8/5.0)

Qwen 3.5-Max is the "Sage in the Ivory Tower." Its intelligence is world-class, and it truly shines in the kind of difficult problems where other AIs throw in the towel.

While not suited for daily casual chat or speed-oriented uses, this "ultimate wisdom" available at such a low cost will be an irreplaceable weapon in research, advanced business analysis, and specialized technical support.