Alibaba Group Holding Ltd will establish a task force to accelerate development of its foundation AI models, following the resignation of Qwen AI division head Lin Junyang. According to a report by the news agency Reuters, the company has sent a letter to employees this week stating that the task force will coordinate AI efforts across the group and mobilise internal resources. This move comes as Alibaba advances its AI work through its Qwen model family.
The memo said Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu, Group CTO Wu Zeming, and Alibaba Cloud CTO Zhou Jingren will coordinate the task force, pooling company-wide resources to strengthen AI development. Jingren will continue to lead Tongyi Laboratory, Alibaba’s AI research arm, and oversee its ongoing research projects, according to the memo seen by Reuters.
The announcement came a day after Junyang posted on X, His departure marks the third senior executive exit from the Qwen division this year. Alibaba’s memo confirming Junyang’s exit also said that more resources will be allocated to AI development and research, the Reuters report added.
Junyang was the third senior Qwen executive to depart in 2024.
Yu Bowen, who headed post-training at Qwen, also resigned this week, following the January exit of coding research scientist Hui Binyuan. Junyang’s resignation came just after Qwen’s product updates.
Monthly active users for Qwen’s mobile app increased to 203 million in February from 31.05 million in January, Reuters reported. It ranks third globally behind ChatGPT from OpenAI and ByteDance’s Doubao app, according to AICPB.com, which tracks AI products. The increase came after Chinese technology companies launched campaigns to draw more users to their apps during the Lunar New Year holidays.
Alibaba has released more than 400 open-source Qwen models since 2023. The models have been downloaded more than 1 billion times.
