According to the Guangzhou Daily, on December 6, news about "ByteDance hiring Alibaba's large model talent with an eight-figure annual salary" quickly sparked discussions on social media platforms. It was reported that Zhou Chang (alias: Zhong Huang), the former head of the "Tongyi Qianwen" large model technology at Alibaba, announced his resignation to start his own business on July 18 this year. However, just two months later, it was reported that Zhou had quietly joined ByteDance.
This news has been confirmed by relevant personnel at ByteDance. It is reported that Zhou's move was not a solo action; more than ten members of his team also joined ByteDance with him. According to reports from Yicai, ByteDance offered Zhou an almost irresistible contract: a position at level 4-2, with an annual salary reaching eight figures (which, according to Alibaba's ranking system, is equivalent to jumping two levels and doubling the salary). Similarly, his team members were also assigned levels 4-1 and 3-2, which correspond to Alibaba's P10 and P9 levels.
Since 2020, Zhou Chang has been working at Alibaba's DAMO Academy, leading a team that developed a multimodal large model named M6. In 2023, with the rise of ChatGPT, they developed the "Tongyi Qianwen" large model based on the M6 model. Tongyi Qianwen has now become the core technology of Alibaba's Tongyi series AI products, and Zhou is thus regarded as "the person who understands Alibaba's large models the best."
Zhou Chang's resignation and job change undoubtedly dealt a significant blow to Alibaba, especially in the context of the increasing importance of AI technology. This move not only highlights ByteDance's ambitions in the field of artificial intelligence but also further intensifies the competition with Alibaba in the AI domain.
