Alibaba Group has intensified its artificial intelligence development strategy following the departure of two prominent technical leaders from its Qwen large language model team. The company’s Chief Executive Officer Eddie Wu confirmed in an internal communication that Chief Technology Officer Zhou Jingren will assume enhanced responsibilities in advancing Alibaba’s signature AI model.
The leadership transition follows the resignation of Lin Junyang, a core technical leader who announced his departure via social media with a brief message: “me stepping down. bye my beloved qwen.” Yu Bowen, head of post-training for the Qwen model, subsequently also announced his exit from the company.
Lin, recognized as one of Alibaba’s youngest P10-level technical leaders at age 33, played a pivotal role in developing the Qwen3-Max model featuring over one trillion parameters and later guided the release of the Qwen3.5 series of smaller models.
According to internal sources, the restructuring emerged as Alibaba’s Qwen initiative evolved from a foundational model project into a group-level strategic priority. The transformation necessitated organizational adjustments that ultimately led to Lin’s decision to resign.
In response to these developments, Alibaba is establishing a foundation model support group jointly coordinated by CEO Wu, CTO Zhou, and Fan Yu. This new structure aims to mobilize company-wide resources to accelerate large model development. Wu emphasized that building foundational AI models represents a critical long-term strategy for Alibaba, with continued commitment to open-source approaches and increased investment in artificial intelligence research and development.
The company simultaneously announced plans to recruit additional leading AI researchers to strengthen its base model team talent pool, signaling Alibaba’s determination to maintain competitive advantage in the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence landscape.