Huawei Denies Plagiarism Allegations in AI Model Controversy with Alibaba

Huawei's AI research arm denies allegations of plagiarizing an Alibaba model, citing independent development and original innovations. Alibaba's stock traded lower on the allegations, which come amid a price war in China's AI market sparked by startups like DeepSeek. Alibaba's push into AI and cloud expansion overseas, including new data centers in Malaysia, South Korea, and the Philippines, has driven a 28% year-to-date stock surge.

A fresh controversy has erupted in China's competitive AI market as Huawei's AI research arm, Noah's Ark Lab, denied allegations of plagiarizing elements from Alibaba's Qwen 2.5 14B model. The denial comes as Alibaba's stock traded lower on Monday, July 7, 2025.

The allegations, stemming from a paper released on GitHub on July 4 by HonestAGI, claimed "extraordinary correlation" between Huawei's recently open-sourced Pangu Pro Moe model and Alibaba's established Qwen 2.5 14B model. The paper argued that the model appeared "upcycled" rather than trained from scratch, raising concerns about possible copyright violations and misrepresented training investments.

Noah's Ark Lab rejected the claims, asserting that the Pangu Pro Moe model was developed and trained independently. The lab stated that the model featured original architectural and technical innovations and was the first large model fully built on Huawei's Ascend chips.

The allegations underscore the intense competition within China's booming AI market. Chinese AI startup DeepSeek ignited a domestic price war in 2024 by introducing affordable AI models, prompting tech giants like Alibaba to follow suit and further intensifying the competitive landscape.

Alibaba's stock has surged 28% year-to-date, driven by increased investor confidence in China's tech sector, strong earnings reports, and a push into artificial intelligence. Alibaba Cloud is rapidly expanding overseas, adding new data centers in Malaysia, South Korea, and the Philippines as part of a global push. These expansions were announced in the first half of 2025, with a third data center in Malaysia launched on July 1, 2025, and a second in the Philippines planned for October 2025.

Backing its ambitions, Alibaba has committed $52 billion over three years to cloud and AI infrastructure, partnering with Microsoft Corp. and Nvidia. Despite the allegations, Alibaba's stock traded lower by 1.37% to $107.40 premarket at last check on Monday.

The AI market's intense competition and Alibaba's aggressive expansion plans highlight the rapid evolution and growth of China's tech sector, which continues to attract significant investment.

References:
[1] https://www.benzinga.com/markets/tech/25/07/46273435/huawei-alibaba-clash-heats-up-on-ai-model-plagiarism-allegations
[2] https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/gadgets/hp-launches-omnibook-5-and-3-series-affordable-lineup-of-ai-laptops-in-india/article69782552.ece