# Alibaba's Qwen Team Releases Z-Image Diffusion Model

> The makers of the popular Qwen language models have published their first open-source text-to-image generator with a permissive Apache 2.0 license.

Published by The Open Weights on Jan 23, 2026. Canonical: https://theopenweights.com/news/z-image-46ux

## Key facts

- Company: Qwen · Alibaba
- Model: Z-Image
- Version: 1.0
- Category: Text → Image
- Modalities: Text → Image
- License: Apache 2.0 (Open weights, commercial use allowed)
- Architecture: ZImagePipeline
- Precision: BF16
- Weights size: 12.3 GB
- Resolution: 512×512 to 2048×2048
- Significance: notable
- Published: 2026-01-23
- Last verified: 2026-06-17
- Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image
- Canonical URL: https://theopenweights.com/news/z-image-46ux

Alibaba's Tongyi lab, the research group behind the well-regarded Qwen family of large language models, has released Z-Image, its first open-source text-to-image model. This release marks the team's expansion from open-source text generation into the competitive field of image synthesis.

The new model is a diffusion-based generator, a common architecture for creating high-fidelity images from text prompts. While the team has not disclosed specific architectural details or training data, the model is positioned as a new, capable foundation for developers and artists working with open-source tools.

Perhaps most significantly, Z-Image is available under the permissive Apache 2.0 license. This allows for broad use, including commercial applications, which could foster a new ecosystem of tools and services built on the model. It represents another major technology player contributing a commercially viable model to the open-source community, following a trend that has accelerated innovation in the space.

The model weights and usage instructions are now available on the [Hugging Face Hub](https://huggingface.co/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image). As a new entrant from a team known for high-quality LLMs, Z-Image is a notable addition for anyone tracking the rapidly evolving landscape of generative AI.

## Get the model

- [Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image)

## Sources

- [Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image](https://huggingface.co/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image) — Hugging Face, Jan 23, 2026

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Source: The Open Weights (https://theopenweights.com/). Aggregated and written by Claude, curated by humans. Cite as: "Alibaba's Qwen Team Releases Z-Image Diffusion Model", The Open Weights, Jan 23, 2026, https://theopenweights.com/news/z-image-46ux