Alibaba Group Holding on June 8 set up a new AI unit called Token Foundry, combining Tongyi Lab and Future Life Lab under chief executive Eddie Wu Yongming, according to people familiar with the matter.

Future Life Lab, previously part of Taobao and Tmall Group, developed projects including Happy Horse, a video-generation model, and Happy Oyster, an open-world AI model.

Tongyi Lab was Alibaba’s main large language model unit and was previously restructured around the Qwen model family.

The change extends Wu’s AI push. Alibaba described AI and cloud as core businesses and reported triple-digit growth in AI-related product revenue for the 10th straight quarter in its March 2026 results.

Alibaba also said it would invest 380 billion yuan (US$56.1 billion) in AI and cloud infrastructure over three years.

As part of the restructuring, Zhou Jingren is set to become Alibaba chief scientist and lead a new Alibaba AI Future Research Institute.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

Recent Alibaba developments