Qwen3.5 9B

Summary: Qwen3.5-9B is a compact multimodal model from Alibaba Cloud's Qwen team, built on a hybrid architecture that combines linear attention with standard attention layers and an integrated vision encoder. Despite its compact 9B parameter size, the model natively supports an extended 262k token context window, reasoning ("thinking mode"), tool calling, and multilingual understanding across 201 languages and dialects. In addition to text, it processes both image and video input, making it a fast, cost-efficient choice for conversational agents, real-time assistants, and vision-language applications.

Intelligence	Speed	Input	Output
Medium	High	Text, Image, Video	Text

Central parameters

Description: Compact multimodal model from Alibaba Cloud with 9B parameters, combining hybrid linear attention with standard attention layers and a vision encoder for fast, efficient inference.

Model identifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-9B

IONOS CLOUD AI Model Hub Lifecycle and Alternatives

IONOS CLOUD start date	End of Life	Alternative	Successor
July 22, 2026	N/A

Origin

Provider	Country	License	Flavor	Release
Alibaba Cloud	China	Apache 2.0	Instruct	February 2026

Technology

Context window	Parameters	Quantization	Multilingual	Further details
262k	9B	FP8	Yes	Hugging Face

Modalities

Text	Image	Video	Audio
Input and output	Input	Input	Not supported

**Note:**The video content is provided as a URL using the video_url content type. The AI Model Hub fetches the video from the URL, so the URL must be public. You can include up to four images in a single request.

Endpoints

Chat completions	Embeddings	Image generation
v1/chat/completions	Not supported	Not supported

Features

Streaming	Reasoning	Tool calling
Supported	Supported	Supported

Reasoning example

Qwen3.5-9B operates in thinking mode by default, generating an internal reasoning trace before producing its final response. It makes the model well-suited for complex, multi-step reasoning tasks.

Unlike models that offer configurable reasoning effort levels (low, medium, high), Qwen3.5-9B does not support this granularity. Instead, reasoning is either on (default) or off. To deactivate it, set "reasoning_effort": "none".

Note: The reasoning trace counts toward max_tokens. If max_tokens is set too low, reasoning can consume the entire token budget, leaving no tokens for the final answer. Activating reasoning also increases response latency, since the model generates the reasoning trace in addition to the final answer.

Request

{
  "stream": false,
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.5-9B",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Answer me with one letter. Maybe A."
    }
  ]
}

Response (shortened for readability)

{
  "choices": [
    {
      "message": {
        "role": "assistant",
        "content": "A",
        "reasoning": "User asks to answer with one letter, maybe A. So respond with a single letter."
      }
    }
  ]
}

Deactivate reasoning

To skip the internal reasoning trace and return only the final answer, set "reasoning_effort": "none".

{
  "stream": false,
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.5-9B",
  "reasoning_effort": "none",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Answer me with one letter. Maybe A."
    }
  ]
}

Usage example

Chat completions

The following example demonstrates how to use Qwen3.5-9B for everyday conversational tasks, such as drafting a concise product description.

API Endpoint: POST https://openai.inference.de-txl.ionos.com/v1/chat/completions

Request:

{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.5-9B",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "system",
      "content": "You are a helpful marketing assistant. Write clear, concise product copy."
    },
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Write a one-sentence product description for a stainless steel water bottle that keeps drinks cold for 24 hours."
    }
  ],
  "temperature": 0.5,
  "max_tokens": 1000
}

Response:

{
  "id": "chatcmpl-890",
  "object": "chat.completion",
  "created": 1677652289,
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.5-9B",
  "choices": [{
    "index": 0,
    "message": {
      "role": "assistant",
      "content": "Stay refreshed all day with our double-walled stainless steel water bottle, engineered to keep your drinks ice-cold for a full 24 hours.",
      "reasoning": "The user wants a single-sentence product description for an insulated stainless steel water bottle highlighting 24-hour cold retention. I will keep it to one sentence and emphasize the key benefit."
    },
    "finish_reason": "stop"
  }],
  "usage": {
    "prompt_tokens": 41,
    "completion_tokens": 33,
    "total_tokens": 74
  }
}

Vision model example

{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.5-9B",
   "messages": [
      {
        "role": "user",
        "content": [
          {
            "type": "text",
            "text": "What do you see in this image?"
          },
          {
            "type": "image_url",
            "image_url": {
              "url": "https://www.ionos.com/favicon.ico?v2",
              "detail": "auto"
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "temperature": 0.7,
    "max_tokens": 1000
  }

Video input example

Qwen3.5-9B also accepts video input. Pass the clip with the video_url content type; the AI Model Hub fetches the file, so the URL must be public.

{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.5-9B",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": [
        {
          "type": "text",
          "text": "Describe what happens in this video."
        },
        {
          "type": "video_url",
          "video_url": {
            "url": "https://example.com/sample-clip.mp4"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "temperature": 0.7,
  "max_tokens": 1000
}

Stream chat completions

To receive responses in real time, you can use streaming. When streaming is selected, usage statistics are not included by default. To obtain usage information in the final stream chunk, you must explicitly set "stream_options": {"include_usage": true}.

API Endpoint: POST https://openai.inference.de-txl.ionos.com/v1/chat/completions

Request:

{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.5-9B",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Compose a poem about the sea."
    }
  ],
  "stream": true,
  "stream_options": {
    "include_usage": true
  }
}

Response:

...
data: {"choices":[],"created":1769419547,"id":"chatcmpl-3d0323bb-67f8-41c5-b757-8fc5a48230f4","model":"Qwen/Qwen3.5-9B","object":"chat.completion.chunk","usage":{"completion_tokens":26,"prompt_tokens":78,"total_tokens":104}}

data: [DONE]

Rate limits

Rate limits ensure fair usage and reliable access to the AI Model Hub. In addition to the contract-wide rate limits, no model-specific limits apply.