Alibaba’s Qwen technology chief resigns amid massive AI push

Alibaba’s Qwen AI project has lost one of its most high-profile technology leaders, just one day after the Chinese tech giant unveiled its new Qwen 3.5 open-weight compact model.

Lin Junyang, a core technology leader on Alibaba’s Qwen team, said in a post on X on Tuesday that he was “resigning” from the project without elaborating. According to his LinkedIn profile, he joined Alibaba in July 2019 and became part of the Qwen team in April 2023.

The sudden departure prompted strong backlash from colleagues and industry partners as global competition among AI developers intensifies, with companies racing to build models that rival those of OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.

Alibaba’s Qwen family of models has emerged as one of China’s most prominent openweight AI efforts, with recent releases posting benchmark results comparable to systems from leading US developers. The Chinese tech giant introduced the model in April 2023, and after receiving regulatory approval, it began public use in September of the same year.

Alibaba on Monday announced the Qwen 3.5 Small Model series with four models with parameters of 0.8B, 2B, 4B, and 9B. According to the company, these systems are native multimodal models designed for applications ranging from on-device AI deployments to lightweight agents. The announcement attracted the attention of figures in the AI ​​community, including Elon Musk, who wrote in X that the model showed “remarkable intelligence density.”

Lin’s departure came just as the Qwen team was moving forward with a new release, prompting unusually strong reactions from colleagues and partners about his central role in the project.

Wen-Ting Chao, a research scientist on the Qwen team, described Lin’s departure as “the end of an era” and thanked Lin for helping drive the project’s progress in open source AI and engineering in a post on X. Yuchen Jin, chief technology officer at AI infrastructure startup Hyperbolic, said Lin helped connect Qwen with the global developer community, recalling late nights working with the team during the model’s launch. Tiezhen Wang, head of APAC ecosystem at Hugging Face, also called Lin’s departure an “incalculable loss” to the Qwen project.

The circumstances surrounding Lin’s resignation remain unclear. Mr. Hayashi did not respond to a request for comment.

Qwen Project contributor Chen Cheng wrote that he was “heartbroken” after hearing the news. Chen appeared to speak directly to Lin in his post on X, writing, “I know quitting is not your choice,” and adding that the team had been working together to launch the model just hours earlier.

Binyuan Hui, another member of the Qwen team, updated her X profile to describe herself as “former MTS @Alibaba_Qwen.” However, it was not immediately clear if he left the company or when he was transferred.

Alibaba did not respond to requests for comment on the reason for the move or the Qwen team’s leadership structure.