Z-Image
Alibaba (Tongyi-MAI)
Z-Image is an image generation model line from Alibaba (Tongyi-MAI). The latest release is Z-Image (27 Jan 2026). This page tracks all 2 Z-Image releases since 26 Nov 2025, with specs, licensing, and how to access each one. Official site →
Z-Imagereleased
Foundation model behind Turbo; higher quality and diversity than Turbo; supports negative prompting and wide style range; suitable for fine-tuning and downstream development
- License
- Apache 2.0
- Commercial use
- Allowed
- Availability
- Self-host, Community API
- Parameters
- 6B
- Architecture
- Scalable Single-Stream DiT (S3-DiT)
- Inference Steps
- 50
License confirmed Apache 2.0 (github.com/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image/blob/main/LICENSE). Date: README news entry is Jan 27 - using Jan 27.
Z-Image-Turboreleased
Distilled from Z-Image base via Decoupled-DMD + DMDR (RL); sub-second inference on H800; #1 open-source on Artificial Analysis T2I leaderboard at launch; strong bilingual (EN/ZH) text rendering
- License
- Apache 2.0
- Commercial use
- Allowed
- Availability
- Self-host, Community API
- Parameters
- 6B
- Architecture
- Scalable Single-Stream DiT (S3-DiT)
- Inference Steps
- 8
License confirmed Apache 2.0 (github.com/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image/blob/main/LICENSE). Date: README news entry is Nov 26 - using Nov 26.
FAQ
- When was Z-Image released?
- Z-Image was released on 27 Jan 2026.
- Is Z-Image open source?
- Yes. Z-Image ships open weights under the Apache 2.0 licence.
- Can Z-Image be used commercially?
- Yes. Commercial use of Z-Image is allowed under the Apache 2.0 licence.
- Where can I use Z-Image?
- Z-Image is available via Self-host and Community API.
See Z-Image in context on the image model timeline, or browse all model families.