{"id":691792,"date":"2026-06-08T15:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T15:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/691792\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T15:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T15:32:11","slug":"alibaba-forges-token-foundry-as-it-hammers-ai-ambitions-into-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/691792\/","title":{"rendered":"Alibaba forges Token Foundry as it hammers AI ambitions into shape"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Alibaba Group Holding on Monday established a new unit called Token Foundry, consolidating key model-development teams as the Chinese technology giant steps up efforts to commercialise artificial intelligence and align its businesses around a unified AI strategy.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The new division brings together Alibaba\u2019s Tongyi Lab and Future Life Lab and will be led directly by CEO Eddie Wu Yongming, according to people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Future Life Lab, previously housed within Taobao and Tmall Group, developed projects including Happy Horse, a video-generation model, and Happy Oyster, an open-world AI model.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The unit was overseen by Zheng Bo, chief scientist and vice-president of technology at Taobao and Tmall Group, who also serves as chief technology officer (CTO) of Alimama, Alibaba\u2019s digital marketing arm.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The new division brings together Alibaba\u2019s Tongyi Lab and Future Life Lab and will be led directly by CEO Eddie Wu Yongming. Photo: Alibaba Group\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/e793ee9e-a953-423f-816f-cdaa1caffd8d_ba30f3a6.jpg\" title=\"The new division brings together Alibaba\u2019s Tongyi Lab and Future Life Lab and will be led directly by CEO Eddie Wu Yongming. Photo: Alibaba Group\"\/>The new division brings together Alibaba\u2019s Tongyi Lab and Future Life Lab and will be led directly by CEO Eddie Wu Yongming. Photo: Alibaba Group<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Zhang Di, who previously led development of Kuaishou Technology\u2019s video-generation model Kling, rejoined Alibaba in November 2025 to run Future Life Lab, reporting to Zheng.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">As part of the restructuring, Zhou Jingren will assume the role of Alibaba chief scientist and head a newly established Alibaba AI Future Research Institute, which will focus on frontier AI research and next-generation technological breakthroughs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alibaba Group Holding on Monday established a new unit called Token Foundry, consolidating key model-development teams as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,3995,28,144,101,5425,149,3,1767,33670,1079,74,25,4477],"class_list":["post-691792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-asia","tag-business","tag-china","tag-economy","tag-hong-kong","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-opinion","tag-south-china-morning-post","tag-sport","tag-technology","tag-us","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}