Alibaba Provider

Alibaba Cloud Model Studio provides access to the Qwen model series, including advanced reasoning capabilities.

API keys can be obtained from the Console.

Setup

The Alibaba provider is available via the @ai-sdk/alibaba module. You can install it with:

<Tabs items={['pnpm', 'npm', 'yarn', 'bun']}> <Tab> <Snippet text="pnpm add @ai-sdk/alibaba" dark /> </Tab> <Tab> <Snippet text="npm install @ai-sdk/alibaba" dark /> </Tab> <Tab> <Snippet text="yarn add @ai-sdk/alibaba" dark /> </Tab> <Tab> <Snippet text="bun add @ai-sdk/alibaba" dark /> </Tab> </Tabs>

Provider Instance

You can import the default provider instance alibaba from @ai-sdk/alibaba:

import { alibaba } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';

For custom configuration, you can import createAlibaba and create a provider instance with your settings:

import { createAlibaba } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';

const alibaba = createAlibaba({
  apiKey: process.env.ALIBABA_API_KEY ?? '',
});

You can use the following optional settings to customize the Alibaba provider instance:

• baseURL string

  Use a different URL prefix for API calls, e.g. to use proxy servers or regional endpoints. The default prefix is https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1.

• videoBaseURL string

  Use a different URL prefix for video generation API calls. The video API uses the DashScope native endpoint (not the OpenAI-compatible endpoint). The default prefix is https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com.

• apiKey string

  API key that is being sent using the Authorization header. It defaults to the ALIBABA_API_KEY environment variable.

• headers Record<string,string>

  Custom headers to include in the requests.

• fetch (input: RequestInfo, init?: RequestInit) => Promise<Response>

  Custom fetch implementation.

• includeUsage boolean

  Include usage information in streaming responses. When enabled, token usage will be included in the final chunk. Defaults to true.

Language Models

You can create language models using a provider instance:

import { alibaba } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';
import { generateText } from 'ai';

const { text } = await generateText({
  model: alibaba('qwen-plus'),
  prompt: 'Write a vegetarian lasagna recipe for 4 people.',
});

You can also use the .chatModel() or .languageModel() factory methods:

const model = alibaba.chatModel('qwen-plus');
// or
const model = alibaba.languageModel('qwen-plus');

Alibaba language models can be used in the streamText function (see AI SDK Core).

The following optional provider options are available for Alibaba models:

• enableThinking boolean

  Enable thinking/reasoning mode for supported models. When enabled, the model generates reasoning content before the response. Defaults to false.

• thinkingBudget number

  Maximum number of reasoning tokens to generate. Limits the length of thinking content.

• parallelToolCalls boolean

  Whether to enable parallel function calling during tool use. Defaults to true.

Thinking Mode

Alibaba's Qwen models support thinking/reasoning mode for complex problem-solving:

import { alibaba, type AlibabaLanguageModelOptions } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';
import { generateText } from 'ai';

const { text, reasoning } = await generateText({
  model: alibaba('qwen3-max'),
  providerOptions: {
    alibaba: {
      enableThinking: true,
      thinkingBudget: 2048,
    } satisfies AlibabaLanguageModelOptions,
  },
  prompt: 'How many "r"s are in the word "strawberry"?',
});

console.log('Reasoning:', reasoning);
console.log('Answer:', text);

For models that are thinking-only (like qwen3-235b-a22b-thinking-2507), thinking mode is enabled by default.

Tool Calling

Alibaba models support tool calling with parallel execution:

import { alibaba } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';
import { generateText, tool } from 'ai';
import { z } from 'zod';

const { text } = await generateText({
  model: alibaba('qwen-plus'),
  tools: {
    weather: tool({
      description: 'Get the weather in a location',
      parameters: z.object({
        location: z.string().describe('The location to get the weather for'),
      }),
      execute: async ({ location }) => ({
        location,
        temperature: 72 + Math.floor(Math.random() * 21) - 10,
      }),
    }),
  },
  prompt: 'What is the weather in San Francisco?',
});

Prompt Caching

Alibaba supports both implicit and explicit prompt caching to reduce costs for repeated prompts.

Implicit caching works automatically - the provider caches appropriate content without any configuration. For more control, you can use explicit caching by marking specific messages with cacheControl:

Single message cache control

import { alibaba } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';
import { generateText } from 'ai';

const { text, usage } = await generateText({
  model: alibaba('qwen-plus'),
  messages: [
    {
      role: 'system',
      content: 'You are a helpful assistant. [... long system prompt ...]',
      providerOptions: {
        alibaba: {
          cacheControl: { type: 'ephemeral' },
        },
      },
    },
  ],
});

Multi-part message cache control

import { alibaba } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';
import { generateText } from 'ai';

const longDocument = '... large document content ...';

const { text, usage } = await generateText({
  model: alibaba('qwen-plus'),
  messages: [
    {
      role: 'user',
      content: [
        {
          type: 'text',
          text: 'Context: Please analyze this document.',
        },
        {
          type: 'text',
          text: longDocument,
          providerOptions: {
            alibaba: {
              cacheControl: { type: 'ephemeral' },
            },
          },
        },
      ],
    },
  ],
});

Note: The minimum content length for a cache block is 1,024 tokens.

Video Models

You can create Wan video models that call the Alibaba Cloud DashScope API using the .video() factory method. For more on video generation with the AI SDK see generateVideo().

Alibaba supports three video generation modes: text-to-video, image-to-video (first frame), and reference-to-video.

Text-to-Video

Generate videos from text prompts:

import { alibaba, type AlibabaVideoModelOptions } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';
import { experimental_generateVideo as generateVideo } from 'ai';

const { video } = await generateVideo({
  model: alibaba.video('wan2.6-t2v'),
  prompt: 'A serene mountain lake at sunset with gentle ripples on the water.',
  resolution: '1280x720',
  duration: 5,
  providerOptions: {
    alibaba: {
      promptExtend: true,
      pollTimeoutMs: 600000, // 10 minutes
    } satisfies AlibabaVideoModelOptions,
  },
});

Image-to-Video

Generate videos from a first-frame image and optional text prompt:

import { alibaba, type AlibabaVideoModelOptions } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';
import { experimental_generateVideo as generateVideo } from 'ai';

const { video } = await generateVideo({
  model: alibaba.video('wan2.6-i2v'),
  prompt: {
    image: 'https://example.com/landscape.jpg',
    text: 'Camera slowly pans across the landscape',
  },
  duration: 5,
  providerOptions: {
    alibaba: {
      pollTimeoutMs: 600000, // 10 minutes
    } satisfies AlibabaVideoModelOptions,
  },
});

Reference-to-Video

Generate videos using reference images and/or videos for character consistency. Use character identifiers (character1, character2, etc.) in your prompt to reference them:

import { alibaba, type AlibabaVideoModelOptions } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';
import { experimental_generateVideo as generateVideo } from 'ai';

const { video } = await generateVideo({
  model: alibaba.video('wan2.6-r2v-flash'),
  prompt: 'character1 walks through a beautiful garden and waves at the camera',
  resolution: '1280x720',
  duration: 5,
  providerOptions: {
    alibaba: {
      referenceUrls: ['https://example.com/character-reference.jpg'],
      pollTimeoutMs: 600000, // 10 minutes
    } satisfies AlibabaVideoModelOptions,
  },
});

Video Provider Options

The following provider options are available via providerOptions.alibaba:

• negativePrompt string

  A description of what to avoid in the generated video (max 500 characters).

• audioUrl string

  URL to an audio file for audio-video sync (WAV/MP3, 3-30 seconds, max 15MB).

• promptExtend boolean

  Enable prompt extension/rewriting for better generation quality. Defaults to true.

• shotType 'single' | 'multi'

  Shot type for video generation. 'multi' enables multi-shot cinematic narrative (wan2.6 models only).

• watermark boolean

  Whether to add a watermark to the generated video. Defaults to false.

• audio boolean

  Whether to generate audio (for I2V and R2V models that support it).

• referenceUrls string[]

  Array of reference image/video URLs for reference-to-video mode. Supports 0-5 images and 0-3 videos, max 5 total.

• pollIntervalMs number

  Polling interval in milliseconds for checking task status. Defaults to 5000.

• pollTimeoutMs number

  Maximum wait time in milliseconds for video generation. Defaults to 600000 (10 minutes).

Video Model Capabilities

Text-to-Video

Image-to-Video (First Frame)

Reference-to-Video

Model Capabilities

Please see the Alibaba Cloud Model Studio docs for a full list of available models. You can also pass any available provider model ID as a string if needed.