Alibaba plans to require large commercial users of its upcoming Qwen3.8-Max AI model to share part of the revenue they generate from it, according to people familiar with the strategy. Stephen Nellis and Eduardo Baptista report for Reuters that the company intends to introduce the rule when it releases the next version of Qwen. The planned rate has not been decided, the sources say.
The latest Qwen3.8-Max has been released as an open-weight model. That means developers can download the model’s learned parameters and run or adapt it on their own infrastructure. Alibaba has so far generally allowed this type of self-hosted use without a fee, while charging customers who access its models through Alibaba Cloud.
The move follows a similar licensing approach by Chinese AI startup Moonshot. Its Kimi K3 model requires providers that sell the model as a service and exceed $20 million in yearly revenue to reach a commercial deal with Moonshot. One source tells Reuters that Moonshot can seek a revenue share of up to 30%.
Chinasoft International disclosed that it has such a revenue-sharing agreement with Moonshot, although it did not reveal the terms. DigitalOcean chief executive Paddy Srinivasan also confirms that his cloud company has a commercial agreement with Moonshot.
Open models, paid commercial use
The arrangements show how AI developers are testing a familiar software model: broad access at low or no cost, followed by fees for large-scale commercial deployment, support and early access to later versions.
For companies using open-weight AI, the terms could become an important procurement issue. A model may remain free for experimentation or smaller deployments, while successful services built on it could trigger licensing talks and revenue-sharing obligations.
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