An Alibaba vice president leaves the company to start a business, targeting the "Market World Model".

On June 3rd, according to a report from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, Zhang Kaifu, the vice president of Alibaba Group and the person in charge of Taobao's business, has officially left the company. His internal account status has been updated to "retired from the arena." After months of preparation, he recently announced his entrepreneurship, focusing on the "market-oriented world model" and aiming at the in-depth implementation of AI in the field of business decision-making.

Zhang Kaifu is one of the recognized core members within Alibaba and is also one of the "Four Great Generals of Taobao." He joined Alibaba in 2017 and has long served as the person in charge of Taobao's business, successively responsible for key sectors such as platform governance, AliExpress cross - border business, and e - commerce intelligent search and recommendation. In 2022, he was promoted to the vice president (M6 level) of Alibaba. He led the construction of Taotian's intelligent search and recommendation product system and was deeply involved in the commercialization of search and recommendation algorithms and multi - modal technologies, with both e - commerce industry experience and AI technology vision.

This departure was not a hasty decision. In April this year, Alibaba carried out an organizational structure adjustment. The intelligent search and recommendation product division led by Zhang Kaifu was split up, and the relevant business teams were incorporated into the newly established ATH business group. This adjustment created space for his entrepreneurial journey. He publicly stated on social platforms: "Predicting collective human behavior, especially market behavior, is a core problem that has not been solved in the field of artificial intelligence and is also an extremely valuable ultimate challenge." He believes that now is the best time to enter this field.

The "market - oriented world model" that Zhang Kaifu is targeting for his entrepreneurship is different from the current popular general world models in the industry. Most players focus on general scenarios such as virtual space generation and physical environment simulation, while Zhang Kaifu has chosen a path closer to the essence of business - using large - scale machine learning, multi - agent simulation, and industry knowledge graphs to build a virtual environment that can simulate the operating logic of the real market. In this "market simulator," enterprises can pre - deduce the long - term impact of variables such as price adjustments, new product launches, promotion strategies, and supply chain changes on user behavior, market share, and the competitive landscape, thereby significantly reducing the risks and trial - and - error costs of real - world decision - making.

Put simply, this is like creating a "wind tunnel experiment system" for the business world. In the current situation where stock competition is intensifying and market complexity is increasing exponentially, enterprises' demand for decision - making assistance that is computable, predictable, and intervenable is booming. Zhang Kaifu has transformed his years of experience in operating a trillion - level market on Taobao into the market intuition of the model - this differentiated advantage is difficult to replicate for pure technology teams.

Currently, Zhang Kaifu's entrepreneurial project has been quietly launched, and he has also started recruiting core talents to fully promote the research, development, and implementation of the "market - oriented" world model. Despite the fierce competition in the field, relying on his profound e - commerce and AI foundation, this direction is expected to accurately serve the real economy, e - commerce platforms, and enterprise business decision - making, becoming a new variable in the market - oriented implementation of AI.

As Alibaba continues to optimize its organization, many technical executives have embarked on new journeys. Zhang Kaifu's choice is not only the practice of his personal technological ideal but also represents the trend of AI evolving from "general capabilities" to "industry in - depth." Whether this industry veteran with years of experience in e - commerce and AI can carve out a differentiated path is worthy of continuous attention from the industry.