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Wency Chen

Alibaba Group Holding has separated the team in charge of developing applications for its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Tongyi Qianwen from the team that builds its large language model (LLM), in a bid to better serve the consumer-facing market, according to Chinese tech media outlet 36Kr.
The AI chatbot team will transition to the Intelligent Information Platform, which primarily oversees consumer-oriented products, including UC Browser and search engine Quark.
Meanwhile, the LLM research and development division, Tongyi Lab, will remain as part of Alibaba Cloud to focus on fundamental research and to support specific products, according to the report on Wednesday.
Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The move comes as China’s Big Tech companies race to turn the technology into actual products. Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen, also known as Qianwen, is one of China’s leading generative AI models.
While Chinese tech giants lag US peers, such as Google, Meta Platforms and Microsoft-backed OpenAI, in funding scale and access to advanced chips, they have proved to be agile in rolling out consumer products and industry-specific solutions.
ByteDance, owner of TikTok, also split its large AI model team into one focusing on fundamental research, called “Seed”, and another on applications, called “Flow”. Similarly, Baidu’s Wenxin large model and Wenxiaoyan app were slotted into the Technology Middle Platform Group and the Mobile Ecosystem Group, respectively.
China’s AI applications market is highly competitive. Products such as Doubao from ByteDance and Kimi from Alibaba-backed start-up Moonshot have been ramping up advertising campaigns across various social media platforms to entice more users.
Launched last year, Tongyi Qianwen is available on both web and mobile platforms. Its web monthly visits reached 10.12 million in October, according to industry research firm QuestMobile, ranking it fourth among Chinese AI chatbots. Front runners Kimi, Wenxiaoyan, and Doubao had 28.63 million, 21.11 million, and 16.88 million visits, respectively.
In July, monthly active users of AI apps in China surpassed 66.3 million, with Doubao, Wenxiaoyan, and Kimi accounting for 30.42 million, 10.08 million, and 6.25 million users, respectively, according to QuestMobile.
Established in 2021, Alibaba’s Intelligent Information Platform counts Quark, which began as a search engine and has gradually added cloud storage services, as one of its key products. The app has been introducing more AI-powered features, such as PowerPoint presentations and summaries for documents and videos.
Quark’s monthly visits exceeded 63 million in November, according to Chinese data provider NewRank.


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It follows similar moves by ByteDance and Baidu, which have divided their AI research and application teams to tackle a competitive market


It follows similar moves by ByteDance and Baidu, which have divided their AI research and application teams to tackle a competitive market.
