Alibaba AI establishes the "Token Foundry" division, merging Tongyi Large Model and Future Life Laboratory

Alibaba announced today (8th) that it has merged the Tongyi Large Language Model Business Unit with the Future Life Laboratory, establishing a new Token Foundry Business Unit directly overseen by CEO Wu Yongming. Zhou Jingren has been appointed Chief Scientist and will lead the establishment of the AI Future Research Institute, with Zheng Bo leading teams such as Happy Horse and Happy Oyster to join. Since the formation of ATH in March, Alibaba's AI organization has completed its third round of integration.
(Background summary: Alibaba Qwen 3.7-Plus model price has significantly dropped, but the cost is that weights are not open-sourced)
(Additional background: Breaking news! Meta Zuckerberg reportedly orders to abandon "Open Source AI" and switch to Alibaba's Qwen for training "Avocado" paid AI)

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• From ATH to Token Foundry: The strategic logic behind three organizational shifts
• Zhou Jingren appointed Chief Scientist, Zheng Bo leads team to join
• Qwen 3.7 ranks top three globally, AI business officially enters the profit phase

Alibaba's AI organizational structure undergoes another major adjustment! The group announced today (8th) that it will merge the Tongyi Large Language Model Business Unit (Tongyi LLM BU) with the Future Life Laboratory (Future Life Lab), forming a brand new "Token Foundry Business Unit," directly managed by CEO Wu Yongming. This marks the third major integration of Alibaba's AI business since the establishment of ATH (Alibaba Token Hub) in March.

From ATH to Token Foundry: The strategic logic behind three organizational shifts

Reviewing the timeline of Alibaba AI organizational changes: On March 16, Wu Yongming issued an all-hands letter announcing the creation of the ATH Business Group, integrating Tongyi Laboratory, MaaS business line, Qwen App, and other AI assets, using "Token" as a unified metric to evaluate the overall ROI of AI operations. On April 8, ATH was further upgraded, with Tongyi Laboratory promoted to Tongyi Large Language Model Business Unit, led by Zhou Jingren.

Today’s third organizational shift more clearly delineates business directions and research positioning. The Token Foundry Business Unit will focus on the commercialization and ecosystem construction of AI products, reporting directly to the CEO, indicating Alibaba’s intention to push AI from "lab projects" to "core profit centers of the group."

Zhou Jingren appointed Chief Scientist, Zheng Bo leads team to join

This adjustment involves the job changes of several key senior executives. Zhou Jingren, who has long led the Qwen series models, will serve as Alibaba’s Chief Scientist—the highest academic title in the group’s technical system—and will spearhead the establishment of Alibaba AI Future Research Institute, focusing on frontier AI technology exploration and breakthroughs. Zhou Jingren graduated from the Chinese University of Science and Technology’s Young Talent Program, holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University, and has previously served as Chief Scientist at Microsoft and Alibaba Cloud. He officially became an Alibaba Partner last year.

Alibaba Vice President Zheng Bo will lead his team, including recently popular AI models like "Happy Horse" and real-time world models like "Happy Oyster," to join the Token Foundry Business Unit. Happy Horse is a multimodal model developed by ATH Innovation Business Unit and caused a buzz in the AI community this April; Happy Oyster is Alibaba’s self-developed open-world model supporting real-time generation of text, speech, and video content.

Qwen 3.7 ranks top three globally, AI business officially enters the profit cycle

The background of this organizational upgrade is that Alibaba’s AI business has begun to demonstrate tangible market competitiveness. The latest Qwen-3.7 model ranks among the top three globally in coding ability and first in the Chinese market, gaining broad recognition from developer communities and industry clients. The Q4 financial report released last quarter also disclosed for the first time that Alibaba’s AI business has crossed the initial investment phase and has officially entered the commercialization and profit cycle, with the capital market reacting positively.

Analysts point out that from the "scattered stars" of AI labs vying for dominance, to ATH’s unified metrics and the reorganization into Tongyi Business Unit, and now the establishment of the Token Foundry Business Unit, Alibaba is rapidly iterating its organization to catch up on the shortfalls in AI commercialization. Compared to Microsoft Azure AI Foundry’s platform strategy from the start, Alibaba’s path from decentralization to integration has been more winding, but at the critical node of AI application acceleration in 2026, such organizational reforms may be the key to Alibaba’s overtaking in the curve.