Alibaba AI Lead Junyang Lin Quits Days After Qwen 3.5 Launch
Junyang Lin, technical lead of Alibaba's Qwen AI model since April 2023, abruptly resigned days after Qwen 3.5 open-weight models launched. His exit, at a time when Qwen handles nearly 200 million one-sentence orders and competes on performance benchmarks, raises questions about the division’s leadership continuity.
1. Leadership Shakeup in Qwen AI
Junyang Lin, who joined Alibaba in July 2019 and led the Qwen team since April 2023, unexpectedly resigned just one day after the rollout of Qwen 3.5 open-weight models. His departure leaves a leadership gap at a critical juncture for the division’s development of advanced AI tools and infrastructure.
2. Reactions from AI Community
Colleagues described Lin’s role as central to Qwen’s growth, crediting him with building the model family that rivals top U.S. AI systems on standard benchmarks. Industry observers highlighted his efforts in engaging the global developer community and praised the models’ intelligence density.
3. Continued Expansion of AI Ecosystem
Alibaba continues to bolster its AI ecosystem by unifying models under the Qwen brand and offering a low-cost cloud coding platform granting access to multiple Chinese AI models. During the Lunar New Year, users placed nearly 200 million one-sentence orders via the Qwen app, and Alibaba’s chip unit unveiled the Zhenwu 810E processor for AI training and inference.