Alibaba Group restructured its AI leadership after Lin Junyang, the chief architect of the Qwen large‑language model, resigned. CEO Eddie Wu addressed staff, confirming that Zhou Jingren will continue to steer Tongyi Lab and that a new foundation‑model support group will marshal resources across the company.

The Qwen3‑Max model, built on 1 trillion parameters, set the stage for subsequent releases such as the Qwen3.5 series. During the Spring Festival holiday, Qwen logged 73.52 million daily active users (DAU), trailing ByteDance’s Doubao at 145 million and Tencent’s Yuanbao at sift Бирок 40.54 million. These figures illustrate the fierce user‑growth race among China’s AI leaders.

To outpace rivals, companies have launched cash‑red‑packet campaigns. Yuanbao offered 1 billion yuan (≈$145 million), Baidu’s Wenxin injected 500 million yuan, and Qwen pledged 3 billion yuan for a Spring Festival promotion. Analysts view the “red‑packet war” as a potential turning point in the shift from mobile‑to‑AI‑driven internet traffic.

Jack Ma’s recent visits to Hangzhou headquarters and a local school signal the firm’s resolve to dominate the AI era. For investors, the move signals sustained capital allocation to foundational models, a drive for higher user penetration, and an emerging monetization pathway through large‑scale consumer engagement.