Qwen team @ Alibaba (通义千问 / 通义实验室)
Known for: Alibaba Cloud's open model family, Bailian MaaS layer, coding/agent benchmarks, and developer distribution.
Tongyi Lab established end of 2022 by merging DAMO language/vision/AI teams into Alibaba Cloud. 36Kr and TMTPost frame Qwen as Alibaba's model layer for cloud AI revenue, Bailian MaaS, open-source distribution, and agent/coding benchmarks; Qwen itself has no standalone valuation or P&L.
- WANG Guoyin (王国胤)(former) Co-founder & Head of Post-Training, 01.AI — now leading Alibaba Tongyi Qwen Pilot group
- ZHOU Jingren (周靖人)CTO Alibaba Cloud Intelligence; head of Tongyi Lab; Deputy Head of DAMO; Chief AI Architect
- HUANG Fei (黄飞)Chief Scientist & Senior Director, Language Technologies Lab, DAMO Academy
- ZHOU Hao (周浩)New Qwen tech lead (March 2026), replacing Lin Junyang
- BAI Shuai (白帅)Lead author Qwen3-VL; head of Qwen vision-language line
- AN YangLead author Qwen3 Technical Report; pre-training lead
Models & API pricing
Rates are OpenRouter's listed prices (USD per 1M tokens), a convenient cross-provider benchmark. First-party / native API pricing in China can differ, sometimes materially. Source: OpenRouter, as of Jul 13, 2026. Compare them on the models page.
News & coverage
Notable recent updates, newest first.
Qwen (Chinese: 通义千问) will shut down its agent features on July 15, 2026, deleting user configs and chat history.
Alibaba consolidates three enterprise Agent products under 1992-born exec Chen Yusen, centralizing its B2B AI strategy.
Qwen (Chinese: Qwen) launches Qwen-AgentWorld, the first native language world model for training AI agents open in two sizes.
Alibaba Cloud launches HappyOyster 1.0 world model that generates real-time interactive digital worlds from a single sentence.
Alibaba AI chief scientist Zhou Jingren departs, adding uncertainty to the Qwen (Chinese: 通义千问) model's trajectory.
Alibaba merges its Qwen (Chinese: 通义千问) and Future Life Lab into a new Token Foundry unit, directly led by CEO Eddie Wu, and appoints Jingren Zhou as Chief Scientist.
Alibaba VP Zhang Kaifu departs to found a world model startup for market behavior prediction.
Alibaba's Qwen (Chinese: 通义千问) team ships Messages, an AI-collaboration IM app that lets users @-mention and delegate tasks to agent assistants in work groups.
Alibaba shifts from software-centric to AI model-centric strategy, with software becoming an interface for model capabilities.