Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s tech lead for its Qwen open-source mannequin is standing down, a shock transfer that’s rattling the worldwide developer group and casting a shadow over the tech large’s pivot into AI.
Junyang Lin, who additionally goes by Justin, introduced the sudden improvement early Wednesday in a publish that rapidly drew a surge of help from the open-source group. “me stepping down. bye my beloved qwen,” he wrote on X, with out elaborating.
Lin didn’t reply to messages searching for remark. An Alibaba spokesperson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Lin is without doubt one of the most influential figures in Alibaba’s transition into AI, because the Chinese language e-commerce large seeks its subsequent development engine past on-line purchasing and cloud computing. The Qwen collection of huge language fashions are among the many top-performing choices globally, and function the technical basis for a collection of client apps, together with Alibaba’s newly revamped chatbot.
He additionally arrange a crew engaged on robotics and embodied AI inside Qwen final 12 months.
Earlier than his announcement, Lin had been engaged on constructing generalist fashions at Alibaba since 2022. He served as tech lead for the Qwen massive language and multimodal mannequin collection and oversaw its open-source initiatives, based on his LinkedIn profile. He holds a grasp’s diploma from Peking College.
In considered one of his final public appearances as Qwen head, Lin instructed a discussion board in Beijing in January that Chinese language firms are unlikely to leapfrog the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic PBC with elementary breakthroughs in AI over the following three to 5 years.
“An enormous quantity of OpenAI’s compute is devoted to next-generation analysis, whereas we’re stretched skinny — simply assembly supply calls for consumes most of our sources,” Lin stated on the time.