By Che Pan and Laurie Chen
BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) – Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Thursday it would set up a new task force to accelerate foundation model development, following the resignation of its Qwen AI division head Lin Junyang.
The task force will be coordinated by Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu, Group Chief Technology Officer Wu Zeming, and Alibaba Cloud CTO Zhou Jingren, who will mobilise group-wide resources for the initiative, the company said in a letter to staff.
Zhou will continue to lead Tongyi Laboratory, Alibaba’s AI research arm, and oversee its ongoing projects, according to the letter.
The announcement came a day after Lin posted on X that he was stepping down from his role at Qwen, the third senior Qwen executive to leave this year.
In the staff letter, which confirmed Lin’s departure, Alibaba pledged to channel additional resources toward the company’s AI development efforts.
(Reporting by Che Pan and Laurie Chen; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
