Qwen3-235B-A22B

Qwen3-235B-A22B is a large-scale mixture-of-experts model built by Alibaba's Qwen team as part of the third generation Qwen family. Unlike traditional dense language models, this MoE architecture routes each token through only 8 of 128 expert layers during inference, activating just 22 billion of its 235 billion total parameters. This sparse design means serving costs stay proportional to the activated parameter count while the full parameter space retains the breadth of knowledge needed to compete with large proprietary models. The model's defining feature is a hybrid reasoning system that lets it switch seamlessly between thinking mode, which applies extended step-by-step computation for complex logic, math, and coding, and non-thinking mode, which produces immediate responses for general dialogue when latency matters more than deliberation.

The model was developed through extensive pretraining followed by post-training stages, and its open-weight status places it among the most capable openly available reasoning models. It covers over 100 languages and dialects with strong multilingual instruction-following, and supports tool calling alongside the Model Context Protocol for orchestrating external tools and APIs in multi-step workflows. Benchmark evaluations show Qwen3-235B-A22B achieves competitive results against top-tier reasoning models across coding, mathematics, and general capability assessments, while excelling in human preference alignment for creative writing, role-playing, and multi-turn conversation. For complex agentic pipelines, Alibaba recommends pairing it with the Qwen-Agent framework, and a configurable thinking budget allows users to tune the quality-cost tradeoff per request.