Alibaba has recently adjusted its organizational structure and merged the Intelligent Internet Business Group into the Intelligent Information Business Group, under the unified management of Wu Jia. This move aims to integrate Alibaba’s resources in the field of AI hardware and accelerate the development of new generation AI products. This integration involves the integration of Tmall Genie hardware team and Quark product team, and exploring new hardware directions such as AI glasses, which is in line with the current hot AI glasses market trend. Alibaba's move shows that it is increasing its investment in the field of AI hardware, striving to occupy a leading position in the market and improving its competitiveness by integrating internal resources.
According to reports from Smart Emergence, Alibaba’s Intelligent Internet Business Group has recently been officially merged into the Intelligent Information Business Group, under the unified management of the latter’s president, Wu Jia. In this integration, Tmall Genie hardware team and Quark product team have begun integrated operations, focusing on next-generation AI product planning and capability integration. As a first-level business department established by Alibaba in 2022, Intelligent Internet, with Tmall Elf as its core brand, is an important To C hardware business of the group. After this adjustment, Intelligent Internet will maintain independent operations, and Song Gang, the head of its business center, will report directly to Wu Jia.
This adjustment follows the structural change of Tongyi business in December last year. At that time, Tongyi's To C product and engineering team was split from Alibaba Cloud and merged into the Intelligent Information Business Group, forming a peer relationship with Quark, while Tongyi Lab remained within the Alibaba Cloud system.
It is worth noting that the merged team will explore new hardware directions including AI glasses. This trend echoes the recent boom in the AI glasses market. At the just-concluded CES2025 exhibition, various smart glasses products were intensively unveiled, showing the trend of a "Battle of Hundreds of Mirrors". At the beginning of this year, Alibaba Cloud has reached a cooperation with AR brand RayNeo to provide exclusive customized Tongyi large model support for its AI glasses.
This business integration shows Alibaba’s in-depth layout in the field of AI hardware. By integrating the technical capabilities of Tmall Genie, Quark and Tongyi, Alibaba is exploring the direction of new generation AI hardware products.
This business integration of Alibaba heralds its more active strategic layout in the field of artificial intelligence hardware. Its future development is worth looking forward to and may also have a profound impact on the entire AI hardware market.