Alibaba sets up new task force, led by CEO Eddie Wu, to focus on AI model development

Alibaba Group Holding is forming a dedicated internal task force headed by CEO Eddie Wu Yongming in a bid to funnel greater resources into its foundational AI model development efforts.On Thursday, Wu said in a letter to members of the company’s artificial intelligence research lab Tongyi that the task force would “jointly coordinate group-wide resources to accelerate foundational model development”.“In technology, standing still means falling behind,” Wu said in the letter, which was provided to the South China Morning Post by Alibaba, owner of the SCMP. “Advancing foundation models is a core strategic priority for our future.”The task force will comprise Eddie Wu; Zhou Jingren, CTO of Alibaba Cloud; and Wu Zeming, head of the firm’s food delivery business.The letter comes a day after the resignation of Lin Junyang, the technical lead for Alibaba’s flagship Qwen foundational models, which he announced on X, sending shock waves through the global open-source AI community.The logo for Qwen is displayed on a smartphone. Photo: Shutterstock ImagesLin’s sudden departure, along with recent departures of other senior technical figures, has sparked intense speculation about the future of Alibaba’s AI model development, including whether the Hangzhou-based tech giant will continue open-sourcing its models.