China’s tech and e-commerce Alibaba said on Monday the EV maker Nio will use both its large language model ‘Qwen’ and the AI coding assistant ‘Lingma’ to “accelerate R&D in advanced automotive technologies.”
Less than a month after expanding its strategic partnership with the BMW Group on LLM adoption in the automaker’s Neue Klasse intelligent vehicles, the company has announced a new round of partnerships in the automotive sector.
In a blog post, the Chinese giant said the Shanghai-based EV maker Nio will use its Qwen Large language model (LLM) but also explore its “AI coding assistant, Lingma, to accelerate R&D in advanced automotive technologies.”
Qwen is a series of LLMs developed by Alibaba’s Cloud arm. According to the firm, Qwen “understand and analyze natural language inputs and provide services and assistance across various fields and tasks.”
“Smart EV maker Nio is leveraging Qwen and Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure to enable a more superior and engaging smart cockpit experience,” Alibaba said on Monday.
Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Alibaba is planning to release Qwen 3, an upgraded version of its flagship AI model, before the end of the month.
The e-commerce giant said Nio’s “in-car AI assistant, NOMI, now handles multi-turn conversations in natural language and seamlessly switches responses between different topics,” adding that the EV maker “is also exploring Alibaba Cloud’s AI coding assistant, Lingma, to accelerate R&D in advanced automotive technologies.”
Recent local reports indicate that the company is in talks with Tesla regarding potential cooperation in the Chinese market.
Nio is aiming to unveil its largest SUV to date, the ES9, at its annual event later this year — several automotive bloggers on Chinese social media and has been confirmed by EV sources. The unveiling is expected to take place during the brand’s annual event ‘Nio Day’ in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The Group delivered 42,094 units in the first three months of the year, up 40.1% year over year and in line with the guidance provided earlier this month by Li of “around 40% year-over-year growth for the deliveries”.
Nio shares dropped to $3.14 last week, marking their lowest point in nearly five years. It follows a recent decline driven by global trade tensions, a stock offering and mounting pressure on new sub-brands and new model rollouts.
As of the time of writing, Nio shares are trading 23% higher at $3.63. Year to date, the stock fell nearly 20%.
