Alibaba Adds Cloud Unit Executive to Top Leadership Group
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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has appointed its cloud unit’s chief technology officer Zhou Jingren as a new member of the group that steers the business empire, a move that underscores the company’s deepening commitment to artificial intelligence (AI) as a critical growth engine, Caixin learned.
Zhou, who also leads the tech giant’s AI lab Tongyi, joined the Alibaba Partnership in October 2025. His appointment followed a significant contraction of the group, which had been reduced to just 17 members as of the release of the company’s annual report in June 2025. In the two preceding fiscal years, the number of partners stood at 26 and 28, respectively.
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- 2016：
- Zhou Jingren joined Alibaba as chief scientist at its cloud unit.
- Late 2022：
- Zhou Jingren took on the roles of Alibaba Cloud CTO, Tongyi AI lab head, and deputy dean of the Damo Academy.
- November 2022：
- OpenAI released ChatGPT; Alibaba launched ModelScope, an open-source community for Chinese AI models.
- April 2023：
- Alibaba launched its Tongyi Qianwen model.
- Months after April 2023：
- Alibaba open-sourced the Tongyi Qianwen model.
- October 2023：
- Alibaba released the 100-billion-parameter Tongyi Qianwen 2.0.
- 2023–2024：
- Alibaba Cloud accelerated its model development and iteratively released open-source models Qwen1.5, Qwen2, and Qwen3, alongside the closed-source Qwen-Max.
- June 2025：
- Alibaba's annual report revealed the group had been reduced to 17 partners.
- September 2025：
- At the Apsara Conference, Zhou unveiled updates to seven large models, as well as upgrades to the Bailian platform and AI infrastructure.
- October 2025：
- Zhou Jingren joined the Alibaba Partnership.
- Third quarter of 2025：
- Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group reported revenue of 39.8 billion yuan, a 34% year-on-year increase, and a 35% increase in adjusted EBITA.
- 2025：
- Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares rose 77.5%, U.S.-listed shares jumped 75.8%, and market capitalization returned above $300 billion.
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