Junyang Lin, the technical leader behind Alibaba's Qwen AI models, announced his departure from the project on Tuesday March 3 in a brief post on X, triggering strong reactions from colleagues and raising questions about the future of one of China's most prominent open-weight AI efforts. The surprise exit came just one day after Alibaba unveiled its Qwen 3.5 Small Model series, marking the third high-profile departure from the division in the first quarter of 2026.
Sudden Announcement Following Major Launch
"Me stepping down. bye my beloved qwen," Lin wrote on X early Tuesday morning Beijing time, without providing further explanation. Lin joined Alibaba in July 2019 and became part of the Qwen team in April 2023, playing a central role in building the model family that Alibaba introduced in April 2023 and opened to public use that September after receiving regulatory approval.
The timing proved particularly striking. Hours before Lin's announcement, Elon Musk had praised the newly released Qwen 3.5 models on X, writing that they showed "impressive intelligence density." The four-model series spanning 0.8B, 2B, 4B, and 9B parameters represents Alibaba's latest push in native multimodal AI designed for on-device deployment and lightweight agents.
Colleagues Signal Leadership Crisis
Multiple Qwen team members described Lin's role as central to the project's success despite having "far fewer resources than competitors," according to reports from Chinese technology publication 36Kr. Chen Cheng, a contributor to the Qwen project, wrote that he was "heartbroken" by the news, appearing to address Lin directly: "I know leaving wasn't your choice."
Sources told TechNode that Lin submitted his resignation on March 3, with the departure communicated internally to the Qwen team. The exit reportedly follows organizational adjustments within Alibaba's Tongyi Lab, which reports to Alibaba Cloud CTO Zhou Jingren, including plans to reorganize model development teams.
Pattern of Senior Departures
Lin's exit follows the January departure of Hui Binyuan, a staff research scientist focused on AI coding, and the reported resignation of Yu Bowen, head of post-training for Qwen models. Multiple other team members, including core leaders responsible for various sub-areas of Qwen models, also announced departures on the same day as Lin, according to multiple reports.
Binyuan Hui updated his X profile to describe himself as "formerly MTS @Alibaba_Qwen," though timing of the change remains unclear. The cascade of exits affects engineers leading Qwen code development, the Qwen-Coder series, post-training research for Qwen-Instruct models, and core contributions to Qwen 3.5/VL/Coder development.
Market Reaction and Platform Growth
Alibaba shares fell 5.1 percent to HK$127.90 in Hong Kong trading on Wednesday, contributing to a broader 3 percent decline in the Hang Seng index. The leadership departures coincide with explosive growth for the Qwen platform, which reported monthly active users jumping from 31.05 million in January to 203 million in February, making it the third most popular AI app globally.
The circumstances surrounding the departures remain unclear, with Alibaba not responding to requests for comment on the leadership structure of the Qwen team. The exits raise execution risks for a flagship AI initiative that Alibaba positions as critical to its long-term technology ambitions.
