Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) is facing a leadership shakeup in its artificial intelligence division just as the company accelerates its push into AI models, tools, and infrastructure.
Qwen AI Tech Lead Steps Down
Junyang Lin, the technical leader behind Alibaba's Qwen AI model, stepped down from the project in a surprise move that sparked strong reactions from the developer community.
Lin, also known as Justin, announced on X that he was leaving his role as Qwen's tech lead without providing further details.
He joined Alibaba in July 2019 and joined the Qwen team in April 2023. His exit came one day after Alibaba unveiled its Qwen 3.5 open-weight small models, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday.
Lin played a key role in building the Qwen model family, which Alibaba introduced in April 2023 and later opened to the public after receiving regulatory approval.
Recent Qwen releases have posted benchmark results that often rival leading U.S. AI systems.
AI Community Reacts To Departure
Lin's departure triggered strong responses from colleagues and partners who described his role in the project as central.
Wenting Zhao, a research scientist on the Qwen team, called the move "the end of an era" and thanked Lin for helping advance the project's open-source AI work.
Yuchen Jin, chief technology officer of AI infrastructure startup Hyperbolic, said Lin helped connect Qwen with the global developer community.
Elon Musk wrote on X that the models showed "impressive intelligence density."
Alibaba Expands AI Ecosystem
Alibaba continues to expand its AI ecosystem by unifying its models under the Qwen brand, building developer tools, and investing in its own AI hardware.
During the Lunar New Year period, users placed nearly 200 million "one-sentence" orders through the Qwen app.
The company's cloud division also launched a low-cost AI coding platform that provides developers access to several Chinese AI models, including Alibaba's Qwen 3.5, Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax, allowing them to switch between models under a single subscription.
Alibaba is also strengthening its infrastructure with a self-developed AI chip.
Its chip unit, T-Head, introduced the Zhenwu 810E, an application-specific processor built for AI training and inference.
The company said the chip delivers performance broadly comparable to Nvidia Corp.'s (NASDAQ:NVDA) H20 processor for China.
BABA Price Action: Alibaba shares were down 0.14% at $135.40 during premarket trading on Wednesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
