Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) has created a new business group dedicated to artificial intelligence, the company said on Monday, as it looks to accelerate adoption of its Qwen AI models and strengthen integration across its consumer and enterprise products.
The new unit, called Alibaba Token Hub (ATH) Business Group, will be led directly by Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu, according to a company press release.
ATH will bring together multiple AI teams, including Tongyi Laboratory, which develops multimodal foundation models; the MaaS Business Line, which builds AI technical infrastructure; the Qwen Business Unit, responsible for a personal AI assistant; the newly formed Wukong Business Unit, focused on an AI-native work platform for enterprises; and the AI Innovation Business Unit, which explores emerging AI applications.
“ATH is built around a single organizing mission: create tokens, deliver tokens, and apply tokens,” Wu said in an internal letter shared in the release. He added the group’s mandate is to drive strategic coordination across Alibaba’s AI businesses, embed AI into workflows, and maintain agility.
The token hub unit will also oversee Alibaba’s DingTalk workplace platform and Quark-branded devices, including smart glasses, Bloomberg reported. The reorganization follows the departure of Lin Junyang, head of the Qwen AI division, and is aimed at improving collaboration among researchers, product teams, and designers while speeding up adoption of Qwen models.
Alibaba has introduced several AI-related products this year, including a mobile app for deploying AI agents, a model to help robots recognize objects and interact with the physical world, and consumer-facing tools enabling in-app payments, food orders, travel bookings, and other services.
Shares of Alibaba rose about 1.9% on Monday. The company is scheduled to report its third-quarter earnings on March 19.