The researcher who led Alibaba’s Qwen models has started his own company. The lab is based in Shanghai and works on what Lin calls next-generation agents across digital and physical worlds. Digital agents for knowledge work, physical agents for real environments, frontier research, and products shaped by real-world feedback. Digital agents need planning, tool use and memory, while physical agents add perception, spatial reasoning and machines that move. Cheap Chinese models have created what one analysis called a death zone for American rivals trying to sell access.