Alibaba's Qwen team released Qwen-Image-2.1 on September 20, a downloadable model that combines image generation, multi-image editing, and native transparent output in one package. It has a 7-billion-parameter visual generation component built from 32 single-stream diffusion transformer layers, generates at native 2K resolution, accepts up to 10 reference images, and can return RGBA files with alpha channels — deciding from the prompt whether an output needs transparency.

The release folds Qwen-Image-Layered's transparency handling into the main model. Consequential license catch: the weights are research-only by default; commercial use requires a separate license from Qwen. (UPDATE Sept 21: the weights had initially gone out under Apache 2.0 before Alibaba quietly switched them to the research-only terms.)