Alibaba's Qwen Office helps National Astronomical Observatory build telescope simulation system in 3 days; agents flag 8 supernova candidates

In an announcement on Sept. 18, 2026, Alibaba said Qwen Office had helped researchers at the National Astronomical Observatory build a digital simulation system for a large-aperture research-grade telescope. The system was assembled in three days at a cost of less than 1,000 yuan.

In the past, similar systems were usually outsourced to software vendors, with development cycles of about three months and costs of tens of thousands of yuan. Alibaba said Qwen Office lowered the development threshold by two orders of magnitude. Because research-grade telescope resources are limited, real equipment is hard to use for repeated trial and error, so rehearsing in a simulation is seen as a practical way to reduce the cost of mistakes on real hardware.

The company said Qwen Office helped integrate telescope components, sensor states, and observation environment information into standard MCP interfaces for agents to monitor and call. The components act like a row of universal sockets, allowing agents to plug in and read status or control equipment. Agents can then combine scientific target priorities, real-time telescope status, and observable windows to autonomously complete a cycle of state perception, task planning, plan generation, and process verification.

Beyond simulation, the agent framework has been connected to the Sitian pathfinder and Sitian prototype. So far, the agents have flagged eight very early supernova candidates, two of which triggered follow-up observations when weather conditions allowed.