Alibaba’s Qwen tech lead steps down after major AI push

Alibaba’s Qwen AI mission has misplaced one among its most seen technical leaders only a day after the Chinese language tech large unveiled its new Qwen 3.5 open-weight small fashions.

Junyang Lin, a central technical chief on Alibaba’s Qwen workforce, stated in a put up on X on Tuesday that he was “stepping down” from the mission, with out elaborating. He joined Alibaba in July 2019 and have become a part of the Qwen workforce in April 2023, in line with his LinkedIn profile.

The abrupt departure, which drew robust reactions from colleagues and trade companions, comes as world competitors amongst AI builders intensifies and firms race to construct fashions rivaling these from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.

Alibaba’s Qwen household of fashions has emerged as one among China’s most distinguished open-weight AI efforts, with current releases posting benchmark outcomes that always rival programs from main U.S. builders. The Chinese language tech large launched the mannequin in April 2023 and opened it to public use that September after receiving regulatory clearance.

Alibaba launched its Qwen 3.5 Small Mannequin sequence on Monday, with 4 fashions spanning 0.8B, 2B, 4B, and 9B parameters. The programs, the corporate stated, are native multimodal fashions designed for makes use of starting from on-device AI deployment to light-weight brokers. The launch drew consideration from figures within the AI group, together with Elon Musk, who wrote on X that the fashions confirmed “spectacular intelligence density.”

Lin’s departure got here simply because the Qwen workforce was pushing forward with new releases, prompting unusually robust reactions from colleagues and companions who described his function within the mission as central.

Wenting Zhao, a analysis scientist on the Qwen workforce, described Lin’s departure as “the top of an period,” thanking him in a put up on X for serving to drive the mission’s advances in open supply AI and engineering. Yuchen Jin, chief expertise officer of AI infrastructure startup Hyperbolic, stated Lin helped join Qwen with the worldwide developer group, recalling late-night collaboration with the workforce throughout mannequin launches. Tiezhen Wang, head of APAC ecosystem at Hugging Face, additionally described Lin’s departure as “an immense loss” for the Qwen mission.

The circumstances surrounding Lin’s departure stay unclear. Lin didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Chen Cheng, a contributor to the Qwen mission, wrote that he was “heartbroken” by the information. In his put up on X, Cheng gave the impression to be addressing Lin immediately, writing, “I do know leaving wasn’t your alternative” and stated the workforce had been working collectively on mannequin launches solely hours earlier.

Binyuan Hui, one other member of the Qwen workforce, has up to date his X profile to explain himself as “previously MTS @Alibaba_Qwen.” Nonetheless, it isn’t instantly clear whether or not he had left the corporate or when the change was made.

Alibaba didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the explanations for the transfer or on the management construction of the Qwen workforce.