Qwen3-ASR (Transformers native)

Overview

The Qwen3-ASR family includes Qwen3-ASR-1.7B and Qwen3-ASR-0.6B, which support language identification and ASR for 52 languages and dialects. Both leverage large-scale speech training data and the strong audio understanding capability of their foundation model, Qwen3-Omni. The 1.7B version achieves state-of-the-art performance among open-source ASR models and is competitive with the strongest proprietary commercial APIs.

Key features:

• All-in-one: Supports language identification and speech recognition for 30 languages and 22 Chinese dialects, including English accents from multiple countries and regions.
• Excellent and Fast: High-quality and robust recognition under complex acoustic environments. Qwen3-ASR-0.6B reaches 2000× throughput at a concurrency of 128. Both models support streaming/offline unified inference with a single model and handle long audio.
• Forced Alignment: Qwen3-ForcedAligner-0.6B supports timestamp prediction for arbitrary units within up to 5 minutes of speech in 11 languages, surpassing E2E-based forced-alignment models in accuracy.

Model Architecture

Available Checkpoints

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Usage

Qwen3-ASR is supported natively in 🤗 Transformers. Until it is part of an official Transformers release, install from source:

pip install git+https://github.com/huggingface/transformers

Simple transcription

apply_transcription_request handles chat-template formatting for you and is the recommended entry point.

from transformers import AutoProcessor, AutoModelForMultimodalLM

model_id = "Qwen/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B-hf"
processor = AutoProcessor.from_pretrained(model_id)
model = AutoModelForMultimodalLM.from_pretrained(model_id, device_map="auto")
print(f"Model loaded on {model.device} with dtype {model.dtype}")

inputs = processor.apply_transcription_request(
    audio="https://qianwen-res.oss-cn-beijing.aliyuncs.com/Qwen3-ASR-Repo/asr_en.wav",
).to(model.device, model.dtype)

output_ids = model.generate(**inputs, max_new_tokens=256)
generated_ids = output_ids[:, inputs["input_ids"].shape[1]:]

# Raw output includes language tag and <asr_text> marker
raw = processor.decode(generated_ids)[0]
print(f"Raw: {raw}")

# Parsed output: dict with "language" and "transcription"
parsed = processor.decode(generated_ids, return_format="parsed")[0]
print(f"Parsed: {parsed}")

# Extract only the transcription text
transcription = processor.decode(generated_ids, return_format="transcription_only")[0]
print(f"Transcription: {transcription}")

"""
Raw: language English<asr_text>Mr. Quilter is the apostle of the middle classes, and we are glad to welcome his gospel.
Parsed: {'language': 'English', 'transcription': 'Mr. Quilter is the apostle of the middle classes, and we are glad to welcome his gospel.'}
Transcription: Mr. Quilter is the apostle of the middle classes, and we are glad to welcome his gospel.
"""

Language hint

Pass a language hint to skip auto-detection.

from transformers import AutoProcessor, AutoModelForMultimodalLM

model_id = "Qwen/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B-hf"
processor = AutoProcessor.from_pretrained(model_id)
model = AutoModelForMultimodalLM.from_pretrained(model_id, device_map="auto")

# Without language hint (auto-detect)
inputs = processor.apply_transcription_request(
    audio="https://qianwen-res.oss-cn-beijing.aliyuncs.com/Qwen3-ASR-Repo/asr_zh.wav",
).to(model.device, model.dtype)
output_ids = model.generate(**inputs, max_new_tokens=256)
generated_ids = output_ids[:, inputs["input_ids"].shape[1]:]
print(f"Auto-detect: {processor.decode(generated_ids, return_format='transcription_only')[0]}")

# With language hint (language code or full name both accepted)
inputs = processor.apply_transcription_request(
    audio="https://qianwen-res.oss-cn-beijing.aliyuncs.com/Qwen3-ASR-Repo/asr_zh.wav",
    language="Chinese",  # or "zh"
).to(model.device, model.dtype)
output_ids = model.generate(**inputs, max_new_tokens=256)
generated_ids = output_ids[:, inputs["input_ids"].shape[1]:]
print(f"With hint:   {processor.decode(generated_ids, return_format='transcription_only')[0]}")

Batch inference

Pass a list of audio paths and optional languages to transcribe multiple files in one call.

from transformers import AutoProcessor, AutoModelForMultimodalLM

model_id = "Qwen/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B-hf"
processor = AutoProcessor.from_pretrained(model_id)
model = AutoModelForMultimodalLM.from_pretrained(model_id, device_map="auto")

audio = [
    "https://huggingface.co/datasets/bezzam/audio_samples/resolve/main/librispeech_mr_quilter.wav",
    "https://qianwen-res.oss-cn-beijing.aliyuncs.com/Qwen3-ASR-Repo/asr_zh.wav",
]

inputs = processor.apply_transcription_request(
    audio, language=[None, "zh"],
).to(model.device, model.dtype)

output_ids = model.generate(**inputs, max_new_tokens=256)
generated_ids = output_ids[:, inputs["input_ids"].shape[1]:]
transcriptions = processor.decode(generated_ids, return_format="transcription_only")

for i, text in enumerate(transcriptions):
    print(f"Audio {i + 1}: {text}")

Chat template

apply_transcription_request is a convenience wrapper around apply_chat_template. Use the chat template directly for more control, such as providing a language hint via a system message.

from transformers import AutoProcessor, Qwen3ASRForConditionalGeneration

model_id = "Qwen/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B-hf"
processor = AutoProcessor.from_pretrained(model_id)
model = Qwen3ASRForConditionalGeneration.from_pretrained(model_id, device_map="auto")

chat_template = [
    [
        {"role": "system", "content": [{"type": "text", "text": "English"}]},
        {
            "role": "user",
            "content": [
                {
                    "type": "audio",
                    "path": "https://huggingface.co/datasets/bezzam/audio_samples/resolve/main/librispeech_mr_quilter.wav",
                },
            ],
        },
    ],
    [
        {
            "role": "user",
            "content": [
                {
                    "type": "audio",
                    "path": "https://qianwen-res.oss-cn-beijing.aliyuncs.com/Qwen3-ASR-Repo/asr_zh.wav",
                },
            ],
        },
    ],
]

inputs = processor.apply_chat_template(
    chat_template, tokenize=True, return_dict=True,
).to(model.device, model.dtype)

output_ids = model.generate(**inputs, max_new_tokens=256)
generated_ids = output_ids[:, inputs["input_ids"].shape[1]:]
transcriptions = processor.decode(generated_ids, return_format="transcription_only")
for text in transcriptions:
    print(text)

Training / Fine-tuning

from transformers import AutoProcessor, Qwen3ASRForConditionalGeneration

model_id = "Qwen/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B-hf"
processor = AutoProcessor.from_pretrained(model_id)
model = Qwen3ASRForConditionalGeneration.from_pretrained(model_id, device_map="auto")
model.train()

chat_template = [
    [
        {
            "role": "user",
            "content": [
                {
                    "type": "text",
                    "text": "Mr. Quilter is the apostle of the middle classes, and we are glad to welcome his gospel.",
                },
                {
                    "type": "audio",
                    "path": "https://huggingface.co/datasets/bezzam/audio_samples/resolve/main/librispeech_mr_quilter.wav",
                },
            ],
        }
    ],
]

inputs = processor.apply_chat_template(
    chat_template, tokenize=True, return_dict=True, output_labels=True,
).to(model.device, model.dtype)

loss = model(**inputs).loss
print("Loss:", loss.item())
loss.backward()

Forced alignment (word-level timestamping)

Use Qwen3ASRForTokenClassification to obtain word-level timestamps from a transcript. Transcribe first with the ASR model, then align with the forced aligner.

Supported languages: Chinese, English, Cantonese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish.

Japanese requires nagisa and Korean requires soynlp: pip install nagisa soynlp

import torch
from transformers import AutoProcessor, AutoModelForMultimodalLM, AutoModelForTokenClassification

asr_model_id = "Qwen/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B-hf"
aligner_model_id = "Qwen/Qwen3-ForcedAligner-0.6B-hf"

asr_processor = AutoProcessor.from_pretrained(asr_model_id)
asr_model = AutoModelForMultimodalLM.from_pretrained(asr_model_id, device_map="auto")

aligner_processor = AutoProcessor.from_pretrained(aligner_model_id)
aligner_model = AutoModelForTokenClassification.from_pretrained(
    aligner_model_id, dtype=torch.bfloat16, device_map="auto"
)

audio_url = "https://huggingface.co/datasets/bezzam/audio_samples/resolve/main/librispeech_mr_quilter.wav"

# Step 1: Transcribe
inputs = asr_processor.apply_transcription_request(audio=audio_url)
inputs = inputs.to(asr_model.device, asr_model.dtype)
output_ids = asr_model.generate(**inputs, max_new_tokens=256)
generated_ids = output_ids[:, inputs["input_ids"].shape[1]:]
parsed = asr_processor.decode(generated_ids, return_format="parsed")[0]
transcript = parsed["transcription"]
language = parsed["language"] or "English"

# Step 2: Prepare alignment inputs
aligner_inputs, word_lists = aligner_processor.prepare_forced_aligner_inputs(
    audio=audio_url, transcript=transcript, language=language,
)
aligner_inputs = aligner_inputs.to(aligner_model.device, aligner_model.dtype)

# Step 3: Run forced aligner
with torch.inference_mode():
    outputs = aligner_model(**aligner_inputs)

# Step 4: Decode timestamps
timestamps = aligner_processor.decode_forced_alignment(
    logits=outputs.logits,
    input_ids=aligner_inputs["input_ids"],
    word_lists=word_lists,
    timestamp_token_id=aligner_model.config.timestamp_token_id,
)[0]

for item in timestamps:
    print(f"{item['text']:<20} {item['start_time']:>8.3f}s → {item['end_time']:>8.3f}s")

"""
Word                  Start (s)    End (s)
------------------------------------------
Mr                        0.560      0.800
Quilter                   0.800      1.280
is                        1.280      1.440
the                       1.440      1.520
apostle                   1.520      2.080
...
"""

Pipeline usage

from transformers import pipeline

model_id = "Qwen/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B-hf"
pipe = pipeline("any-to-any", model=model_id, device_map="auto")

chat_template = [
    {
        "role": "user",
        "content": [
            {
                "type": "audio",
                "path": "https://huggingface.co/datasets/bezzam/audio_samples/resolve/main/librispeech_mr_quilter.wav",
            },
        ],
    }
]
outputs = pipe(text=chat_template, return_full_text=False)
raw_text = outputs[0]["generated_text"]

# Use processor helper to extract transcription
transcription = pipe.processor.extract_transcription(raw_text)
print(f"Transcription: {transcription}")

---

Speed & Memory Improvements

Torch compile

Both the ASR and forced aligner models support torch.compile. The forced aligner is a particularly good fit because it runs a single forward pass with no autoregressive decoding, making it ideal for bulk timestamping workflows.

On an A100 we observed ~2.5× speed-up for the forced aligner and ~2.4× for ASR generate at batch size 4.

import torch
from transformers import AutoProcessor, AutoModelForMultimodalLM

model_id = "Qwen/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B-hf"
processor = AutoProcessor.from_pretrained(model_id)
model = AutoModelForMultimodalLM.from_pretrained(model_id, dtype=torch.bfloat16).to("cuda").eval()

audio_url = "https://huggingface.co/datasets/bezzam/audio_samples/resolve/main/librispeech_mr_quilter.wav"
inputs = processor.apply_transcription_request(
    audio=[audio_url] * 4,
).to("cuda", torch.bfloat16)

model.forward = torch.compile(model.forward)

# Warmup
with torch.inference_mode():
    for _ in range(3):
        _ = model.generate(**inputs, max_new_tokens=256, do_sample=False)

# Inference
with torch.inference_mode():
    output_ids = model.generate(**inputs, max_new_tokens=256, do_sample=False)

generated_ids = output_ids[:, inputs["input_ids"].shape[1]:]
print(processor.decode(generated_ids, return_format="transcription_only")[0])

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Evaluation

WER on the HuggingFace Open ASR Leaderboard (26 June 2026):

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Citation

@article{Qwen3-ASR,
  title={Qwen3-ASR Technical Report},
  author={Xian Shi, Xiong Wang, Zhifang Guo, Yongqi Wang, Pei Zhang, Xinyu Zhang, Zishan Guo,
          Hongkun Hao, Yu Xi, Baosong Yang, Jin Xu, Jingren Zhou, Junyang Lin},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.21337},
  year={2026}
}