Advances in spatial computing

BEIJING (EFE).— China took a step in the emerging field of space computing by executing an artificial intelligence model developed by the technology giant Alibaba in orbit, in a test that reinforces the Asian country’s commitment to bringing advanced artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities beyond terrestrial infrastructures.

The Qwen-3 model, from the subsidiary Alibaba Cloud, was loaded and operated in an in-orbit computing center managed by the Chinese aerospace company Adaspace Technology, where it performed various inference tasks in November, the Hong Kong newspaper “South China Morning Post” reported.

The entire process, starting with sending instructions from Earth to returning results, was completed in less than two minutes, according to company officials.

Qwen 3 model

The experiment was carried out within the framework of the so-called Star-Compute Project, an initiative that foresees the progressive deployment of a constellation of up to 2,800 satellites with processing capacity, designed to support artificial intelligence applications, including so-called physical AI, as well as model training and inference.

Qwen-3, which was introduced in April last year, is part of Alibaba’s family of language models and is distributed in open source.

The company maintains that its ecosystem has become one of the largest in the sector, in a context of intense global competition for the development of large AI models.

The in-orbit test occurs while China promotes the diversification of its technological infrastructure in an environment marked by US restrictions on the export of advanced chips and by the growing rivalry in areas considered strategic.

New option

Space computing, still in an incipient phase, appears as a new front in that race, with potential civil applications in Earth observation, communications or real-time data management.

Alibaba, which in recent years has pointed to the cloud and AI as the axes of its growth, has announced multimillion-dollar investments in these areas and the expansion of data centers outside of China.

The testing of Qwen-3 in space thus adds to a series of initiatives aimed at strengthening its position in the AI ​​market, although experts emphasize that the commercial viability and practical scope of computing in orbit still need to be demonstrated.

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