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Wency Chen

Alibaba Group Holding on Monday established a new unit called Token Foundry, consolidating key model-development teams as the Chinese technology giant steps up efforts to commercialise artificial intelligence and align its businesses around a unified AI strategy.
The new division brings together Alibaba’s Tongyi Lab and Future Life Lab and will be led directly by CEO Eddie Wu Yongming, according to people familiar with the matter.
Future Life Lab, previously housed within Taobao and Tmall Group, developed projects including Happy Horse, a video-generation model, and Happy Oyster, an open-world AI model.
The unit was overseen by Zheng Bo, chief scientist and vice-president of technology at Taobao and Tmall Group, who also serves as chief technology officer (CTO) of Alimama, Alibaba’s digital marketing arm.

Zhang Di, who previously led development of Kuaishou Technology’s video-generation model Kling, rejoined Alibaba in November 2025 to run Future Life Lab, reporting to Zheng.
As part of the restructuring, Zhou Jingren will assume the role of Alibaba chief scientist and head a newly established Alibaba AI Future Research Institute, which will focus on frontier AI research and next-generation technological breakthroughs.
Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Alibaba Group Holding owns the South China Morning Post.
Zhou is regarded as one of the architects of Alibaba’s AI push. He helped build Tongyi Lab and has overseen development of the company’s Qwen family of large language models. He was also appointed to the Alibaba Partnership, the company’s highest decision-making body, late last year.
The changes mark the latest step in a broader reorganisation aimed at strengthening Alibaba’s full-stack AI ambitions.
In March, the company established Alibaba Token Hub (ATH), a business group focused on what it described as the creation, delivery and application of AI tokens. The group also reports directly to Wu.
Token Foundry will operate under ATH, which oversees Alibaba’s model-as-a-service offerings, the Qwen application, enterprise AI products and other AI initiatives.
Alibaba also formed a group-level technology committee in April, chaired by Wu. Other members include Zhou, group CTO Wu Zeming and Alibaba Cloud CTO Li Feifei.

The restructuring comes as Alibaba seeks new growth engines beyond its core e-commerce operations.
The company reported revenue of 243.4 billion yuan (US$33.9 billion) in the first quarter, falling short of the Bloomberg consensus forecast of 246.5 billion yuan as competition intensified across its online retail businesses.
Cloud computing remained a stand-out performer, however, with revenue rising 38 per cent year on year to 41.6 billion yuan. Revenue from external cloud customers accelerated by 40 per cent.
Speaking on the company’s earnings call, Wu said AI model and application services had become key drivers of cloud profitability. He said annualised recurring revenue from those businesses was expected to exceed 10 billion yuan in the second quarter and reach more than 30 billion yuan by the end of the year.


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Zhang Di led the months-long HappyHorse project after he rejoined Alibaba in November.  Photo: Handout

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Alibaba consolidates key AI teams under CEO Eddie Wu and appoints Qwen leader Zhou Jingren as chief scientist


Alibaba consolidates key AI teams under CEO Eddie Wu and appoints Qwen leader Zhou Jingren as chief scientist.


Alibaba forges Token Foundry as it hammers AI ambitions into shape

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Alibaba consolidates key AI teams under CEO Eddie Wu and appoints Qwen leader Zhou Jingren as chief scientist

Alibaba consolidates key AI teams under CEO Eddie Wu and appoints Qwen leader Zhou Jingren as chief scientist