Introduction:

Recently, IDC released the "IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Foundation Model Software 2026 Vendor Assessment" (doc # US54427726, July 2026) report, evaluating the model families and supporting model service capabilities of 11 worldwide vendors.

According to the report, “While the model landscape had largely consisted of families of large language models (LLMs) addressing text-based use cases within enterprises up until the start of 2025 (e.g., as text summarization, document analysis and synthesis, business analysis), the ability of models to process multiple inputs (video, images, voice, and music) unlocked a host of additional creative use cases for enterprises. And in 2026, we have seen an explosion in models serving creative use cases, including video generation, video editing, image editing, animation, and film production. Dedicated models for video and image generation became first-class members of several model families.” At the model level, the evaluation examined Alibaba's Qwen model family capabilities. The report notes, “Alibaba offers a broad model portfolio that includes the Qwen large language model series. The Qwen large model family adopts a unified mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture and pretraining paradigm, offering a full range of model sizes from lightweight to Max scale that supports reasoning, coding, and multilingual capabilities. It has launched dozens of self-developed models in text generation, reasoning, multimodal understanding, multimodal generation, and specialized task domains, with a range of model sizes to meet the diverse model needs of different customers.”

To translate model capabilities into usable productivity for enterprises, a complete layer of services and toolchains is also required. The report also notes, “Alibaba Cloud's large-scale model service platform, Model Studio, is a platform for large-scale model development and application building. It offers a rich selection of large language models, multimodal models, and scenario-optimized models, along with a comprehensive toolchain for data processing, fine-tuning, evaluation, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), application building, and deployment.”

The integration of the model and service layers forms the foundation of Alibaba Cloud's full-stack AI cloud services. What enables this capability to reach customers at scale is Alibaba Cloud's dual-track strategy of "open source + business" and global node deployment.

The report stated, “Leveraging Alibaba Cloud's global node deployment and "open source + commercial" dual-track strategy, Alibaba has achieved large-scale deployment across major enterprise clients in the internet sector, as well as in finance, manufacturing, government, and cross-border expansion scenarios.” Large-scale customer deployment ultimately reflects market share. According to IDC's previously released "China AI Software Market Semi-Annual Track, 2025H2," Alibaba Cloud ranked first in China's large model training and promotion public cloud market with a 42.2% share, with a year-on-year growth rate of 116%, the highest in the market; IDC's "China Intelligent Computing Cloud Infrastructure Service Market Insights, 2025H2" shows that Alibaba Cloud ranks first in China's GenAI IaaS market with a 30.3% share. Additionally, it was previously selected as a "Leader" in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Infrastructure and as a Global "Leader" in Forrester's AI Infrastructure Solutions. Alibaba Cloud has received unanimous recognition from international authoritative organizations for its complete journey from computing infrastructure to foundational models.

Alibaba Cloud will continue to increase investment in model R&D and open-source ecosystems, enhance model service capabilities, and leverage full-stack AI capabilities to help global enterprises accelerate intelligent transformation.

Source: IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Foundation Model Software 2026 Vendor Assessment, Doc #US54427726, July 2026

IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of technology and suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each supplier’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures supplier product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term. The Strategy score measures alignment of supplier strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5- year timeframe. Supplier market share is represented by the size of the icons. 

About IDC MarketScape: IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of technology and service suppliers in a given market. The research utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each supplier’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of technology suppliers can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective suppliers.