Alibaba’s Qwen AI division head becomes latest exec to leave this year

Published Wed, Mar 4, 2026 · 06:00 PM

[BEIJING] The head of Alibaba Group’s Qwen artificial intelligence model division, Lin Junyang, said on Wednesday (Mar 4) he would be stepping down from his role, becoming the third senior Qwen executive to depart this year.

“Bye my beloved Qwen,” Lin wrote in a post on X, without providing further explanation.

Yu Bowen, who headed post-training for Qwen, also resigned on Wednesday, Chinese media outlet LatePost reported.

That follows the departure of Hui Binyuan, a staff research scientist focused on coding, in January.

The three men did not respond to requests for comment. Alibaba also did not respond to requests for comment on the departures.

Alibaba’s shares were down 4 per cent in Wednesday afternoon trade, underperforming a 2.8 per cent slide for the Hong Kong market that was swept up in a broad sell-off as investors fretted over the impact of the Iran war.

Lin’s exit comes two days after Qwen released updated products.

Monthly active users for Qwen’s mobile app surged to 203 million in February from 31.05 million in January. It now ranks third globally behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT and ByteDance’s Doubao app, according to AICPB.com, which tracks AI products.

The jump came after Chinese tech giants launched aggressive campaigns to draw more users to their apps during the Chinese New Year holidays.

Alibaba has released more than 400 open-source Qwen models since 2023. The models have been downloaded over one billion times. REUTERS