(Yicai) Aug. 12 --  Lin Junyang has established an artificial intelligence startup around five months after leaving his role as technical leader of Alibaba Group Holding's Qwen team, with the new company securing investments from Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings, among others.

Pragmatik Labs, based in Shanghai, will focus on next-generation AI agents that span the digital and physical worlds, Lin, 33, announced on social media today. The company has secured funding led by Gaorong Ventures and HSG, with Tencent and Shanghai Engine Fund, a government investment fund, also participating, he noted.

According to reports on Lin's entrepreneurial progress in June, the post-money valuation of Pragmatik Labs' first fundraiser reached USD2 billion. However, Lin has not yet commented on the figure.

Pragmatik Labs' technological development will primarily focus on digital agents, physical agents, research to product, and long horizons, according to its website.

Digital agents refer to general agents aimed at knowledge work, business operations, and industrial-grade workflows, while physical agents are embodied intelligent systems capable of adapting to their environment, taking action, and completing long-term tasks in the real world.

Lin earned a master's degree from the School of Foreign Languages at Peking University in 2019 and joined Alibaba's Damo Academy, a fundamental science research institution, as a senior algorithm engineer. He later led the Hangzhou-based company's AI business and drove the continuous iteration of the Qwen model series before quitting this March.

After leaving Alibaba, Lin published an article titled From "Reasoning" Thinking to "Agentic" Thinking, proposing that the next phase of AI model development is "thinking in order to act, while interacting with an environment, and continuously updating plans based on feedback from the world."

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev