Alibaba Reshuffles Qwen AI Team, Hires Ex-DeepMind Scientist for Post-Training
Alibaba reshuffles Qwen LLM leadership after two core technical leads depart, assigning CTO Zhou Jingren to lead Tongyi Lab and hiring ex-DeepMind researcher Zhou Hao. The company pledges to open-source AI, increase R&D funding and set up a foundational model support group to speed Qwen development and advance AGI.
1. Leadership Reshuffle
Alibaba moved to stabilize its flagship Qwen project after departures of core technical leads Lin Junyang and Yu Bowen by naming Cloud CTO Zhou Jingren to lead Tongyi Lab and oversee foundational AI model initiatives.
2. Recruitment of Ex-DeepMind Researcher
To strengthen its post-training efforts, Alibaba onboarded Zhou Hao, a former Google DeepMind scientist with a PhD from University of Wisconsin–Madison and contributions to products like Gemini 3 and AI Mode, as head of Qwen post-training research.
3. AI Strategy and Development Plans
The company confirmed open-source model policies, committed to higher AI R&D spending and will launch a foundational model support group to coordinate resources, accelerate Qwen iterations and pursue long-term artificial general intelligence goals.