Alibaba's Zhou Jingren, ByteDance's Wu Yonghui, and Tencent's Yao Shunyu. Yao Shunyu's appointment at Tencent has finally received official confirmation. On December 17, Tencent upgraded its large model R&D structure by establishing new departments for AI Infrastructure, AI Data, and Data Computing Platform, aiming to comprehensively strengthen its large model development system and core capabilities. Concurrently, it was announced that "Vinces Yao," the former star researcher from OpenAI, Yao Shunyu, would assume the role of "Chief AI Scientist in the CEO/President's Office." He will report directly to Tencent President Martin Lau and will concurrently serve as the head of both the AI Infrastructure Department and the Large Language Model Department, reporting dually to Dowson Tong, President of the Technology and Engineering Group. Three key points are immediately noteworthy here: First, this marks the inaugural creation of a Chief AI Scientist position within Tencent's top executive office. Second, this role is positioned sufficiently close to the center of power at Tencent. Third, the individual appointed to this position is a very young star figure in the AI field. This development brings to mind similar personnel and organizational adjustments previously made by ByteDance and Alibaba. With this move, the three Chinese internet giants have collectively placed AI scientists at the heart of their power structures in the AI era.
For major corporations, adjusting the core of the organization is no simple task. Yet, all three leading tech giants have found ways to pull AI towards the core of their group decision-making. First, consider Alibaba. Not long ago, Alibaba Cloud's CTO and head of the Tongyi Lab, Zhou Jingren, was formally promoted to become a partner of Alibaba Group. This represents the peak of his personal career and serves as a key signal of the evolution of Alibaba's AI strategy. The Alibaba partnership team has been streamlined, and Zhou Jingren's inclusion marks the first time Alibaba has formally introduced a purely technical, AI scientist background into its power center. Previously, Zhou Jingren left Microsoft to join Alibaba as Chief Scientist of Alibaba Cloud, later assuming the role of Alibaba Cloud CTO. In 2023, with Eddie Yongming Wu taking the helm, concurrently serving as Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba explicitly identified "AI-driven" as a major strategic focus for the group. The internal AI team within the DAMO Academy was reorganized into the Tongyi Lab, led by Zhou Jingren. Subsequently, Zhou led his team in advancing the development of the Qwen series of models, contributing to Qwen becoming one of the most watched open-source models globally, a crucial move for Alibaba to secure its place in the AI era. Simultaneously, Alibaba has also organizationally pulled AI into a more central position. Starting from August 2025, Alibaba effectively ended its "1+6+N" horizontal spin-off model, reconsolidating into four major divisions, further cementing the important status of "AI + Cloud" at the group level. Now, look at ByteDance. From 2023 to 2024, ByteDance gradually established two core AI organizations: Seed and Flow. One focuses on fundamental large model R&D, while the other is responsible for implementing large models into specific products. Among them, the Seed department is led by Zhu Wenjia, former head of TikTok Technology, who reports directly to CEO Liang Rubo. Then, in early 2025, former Google Vice President Wu Yonghui joined Seed, also reporting directly to Liang Rubo. Wu Yonghui had earned the title of Google Fellow at Google and made significant contributions to Gemini. His addition further highlighted ByteDance's emphasis on fundamental research. Later, in October 2025, Seed underwent a new round of organizational adjustments, swiftly moving through a transition period, with Wu Yonghui formally becoming the sole head of Seed, reporting directly to ByteDance's core leadership. It was externally emphasized that Seed's primary goal is to explore the upper limits of intelligence, focusing on long-term research. Tencent's adjustments, by comparison, arrived somewhat later. It first concentrated on developing foundational large models in 2023, then shifted its AI product lines to departments closer to business, launching C-end products like Yuanbao. By 2025, Tencent's AI division saw more frequent adjustments, and internal relationships gradually became clearer. In February, Tencent integrated C-end AI products previously scattered across different business groups, forming an AI product matrix centered around the Cloud and Smart Industries Group (CSIG). In April, the Hunyuan R&D team was internally split into Large Language Model and Multimodal Model departments, establishing a dual-track system for algorithm R&D. Currently, with the establishment of new organizations like the AI Infrastructure Department, Tencent has reorganized its large model R&D system. The official announcement of Yao Shunyu's appointment finally gives Tencent an AI scientist with a direct line to the power center.
Placing AI scientists next to the CEO – what benefits does it bring? As Liang Wenfeng noted, innovation is certainly not lacking in capital but rather in confidence, and in knowing how to organize high-density talent to achieve effective innovation. Competition in AI is a contest of top-tier talent and organizational capability. It requires both the right top-tier talent and placing them in the right positions, matched with corresponding organizational adjustments, to genuinely accelerate AI progress. This holds true for ByteDance and Alibaba, is what Tencent aims to do, and is also the case for Google. In 2023, Google merged the AI lab Google Brain, which developed the Transformer architecture, with DeepMind, the creator of AlphaGo, to form the new Google DeepMind. In early 2025, it further placed the Gemini App team and the AI Studio developer team entirely under DeepMind's management, centralizing authority over AI computing power, talent, and model R&D, all under the unified leadership of Demis Hassabis. Simultaneously, both Hassabis and Google's Chief Scientist, Jeff Dean, report directly to the CEO. Google's密集 (dense) stream of AI achievements is inseparable from this kind of organizational support. The most prominent commonality among these giants is placing AI scientists in key positions close to the center of power. Overall, an era where AI scientists are stepping into the spotlight is arriving. This brings many advantages.
In the past, AI departments within major internet companies often functioned as mid-platforms or labs, with scientists reporting to business group presidents. The elevated status of AI scientists today signifies an upgrade in AI's decision-making authority within these companies. Furthermore, when AI departments gain greater power and more resources, they can leverage the technical intuition of their respective AI leaders to direct funds more precisely towards the technological frontier, improving the efficiency of spending. Additionally, the increased prominence of AI scientists within corporations can bring流量 (traffic) and enhance reputation. Just as Luo Fuli's joining Xiaomi raised external attention and discussion around Xiaomi's AI efforts even before the release of the MiMo-V2-Flash large model. The benefits derived from Yao Shunyu receiving exceptional treatment at Tencent are likely to be even greater. Beyond the points above, the most obvious advantage is providing endorsement for industry recruitment. Tencent's top executives are now personally involved in attracting the most elite AI talent. Following Yao's appointment, Tencent's quest for talent may proceed more smoothly. A more tangible benefit is the complementary fit between Yao Shunyu's expertise and Tencent's AI needs. As a top young scholar specializing in AI large model reasoning and agent direction, Yao can help Tencent address its shortcomings in reasoning and accelerate the deployment of Agent scenarios. One of Tencent's most imaginative AI ventures involves building Agents for WeChat. Now, a WeChat Super Agent has a chance to debut sooner.
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