Decapitated Qwen: Alibaba Urgently Rebuilds AI HQ

On March 5, 2026, amid ambitious statements by the PRC authorities, the industry was shaken by corporate drama: the head of Alibaba's Qwen division resigned. In response, Alibaba immediately formed a new foundation model task force under the direct leadership of top management.

The Qwen family of models has remained China's main and most successful open-weight response to the Western LLaMA. The departure of a key architect at such a critical stage of the race is a severe blow to the ecosystem. The formation of an emergency committee means a deep audit of current resources and a possible shift in vector: from openly publishing weights to commercial API monetization within the Alibaba Cloud platform. The Chinese AI market is entering a phase of harsh consolidation.

Source: Reuters / TechCrunch