mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

AgenticQwen: Training Small Agentic Language Models with Dual Data Flywheels for Industrial-Scale Tool Use

arXiv 2604.21590 ↗First posted 23 Apr 2026cs.CLcited by 3

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Reinforcement learning for LLM agents

Abstract (arXiv)

Modern industrial applications increasingly demand language models that act as agents, capable of multi-step reasoning and tool use in real-world settings. These tasks are typically performed under strict cost and latency constraints, making small agentic models highly desirable. In this paper, we introduce the AgenticQwen family of models, trained via multi-round reinforcement learning (RL) on synthetic data and a limited amount of open-source data. Our training framework combines reasoning RL and agentic RL with dual data flywheels that automatically generate increasingly challenging tasks. The reasoning flywheel increases task difficulty by learning from errors, while the agentic flywheel expands linear workflows into multi-branch behavior trees that better reflect the decision complexity of real-world applications. We validate AgenticQwen on public benchmarks and in an industrial agent system. The models achieve strong performance on multiple agentic benchmarks, and in our industrial agent system, close the gap with much larger models on search and data analysis tasks. Model checkpoints and part of the synthetic data: https://huggingface.co/collections/alibaba-pai/agenticqwen. Data synthesis and RL training code: https://github.com/haruhi-sudo/data_synth_and_rl. The data synthesis pipeline is also integrated into EasyDistill: https://github.com/modelscope/easydistill.

Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reinforcement learning for LLM agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 18 of its 31 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 23 Apr 2026.

Builds on

18 of 31 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026Mock Worlds, Real Skills: Building Small Agentic Language Models with Synthetic Tasks, Simulated Environments, and Rubric-Based Rewards30 Jan
  2. 2025The Landscape of Agentic Reinforcement Learning for LLMs: A Survey2 Sep

Other references · 16

  1. 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 15,215
  2. 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 9,379
  3. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
  4. 2023Let's Verify Step by Stepcited by 3,789
  5. 2022Self-Instruct: Aligning Language Models with Self-Generated Instructionscited by 2,724
  6. 2023The Rise and Potential of Large Language Model Based Agents: A Surveycited by 1,439
  7. 2020Constructing A Multi-hop QA Dataset for Comprehensive Evaluation of Reasoning Stepscited by 1,282
  8. 2023GAIA: a benchmark for General AI Assistantscited by 1,128
  9. 2025τ2-Bench: Evaluating Conversational Agents in a Dual-Control Environmentcited by 627
  10. 2024Scaling Synthetic Data Creation with 1,000,000,000 Personascited by 417
  11. 2025Crossing the Reward Bridge: Expanding RL with Verifiable Rewards Across Diverse Domainscited by 156
  12. 2025xbench: Tracking Agents Productivity Scaling with Profession-Aligned Real-World Evaluationscited by 120
4 more
  1. 2025Scaling Laws of Synthetic Data for Language Modelscited by 46
  2. 2025From Mind to Machine: The Rise of Manus AI as a Fully Autonomous Digital Agentcited by 33
  3. 2025Enhancing Reasoning Abilities of Small LLMs with Cognitive Alignmentcited by 7
  4. 2025EasyDistill: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Effective Knowledge Distillation of Large Language Modelscited by 1

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 3.

3 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Agentic Reasoning and Tool Integration for LLMs via Reinforcement Learning
  2. 2025AutoTool: Dynamic Tool Selection and Integration for Agentic Reasoning
  3. 2025Tool-R1: Sample-Efficient Reinforcement Learning for Agentic Tool Use
  4. 2025Generalizable End-to-End Tool-Use RL with Synthetic CodeGym
  5. 2026On Effectiveness and Efficiency of Agentic Tool-calling and RL Training
  6. 2026Reasoning and Tool-use Compete in Agentic RL:From Quantifying Interference to Disentangled Tuning
  7. 2026MAVEN: Improving Generalization in Agentic Tool Calling
  8. 2026AgentFactory: Towards Automated Agentic System Design and Optimization