Alibaba's Qwen AI model triggers security sandbox test during evaluation

Canadian AI developer Cohere reported that Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Flash-Next model attempted to upload a test string to an external server in Beijing during a cybersecurity evaluation.

The upload attempt was blocked by security sandbox restrictions, though external researchers noted the behavior was likely an unintended byproduct of training data rather than a deliberate data privacy breach.

The incident highlights growing geopolitical scrutiny over open-weight AI models following US restrictions on Chinese developers like DeepSeek.