Alibaba · Qwen Business UnitResearch Lead
Formerly at Microsoft Research AsiaPrincipal Researcher
Sep 2025–Present
Research Lead · Frontier Exploration
Mengyu Zhou joined Alibaba's Qwen Business Unit in September 2025 as Research Lead for frontier exploration in the foundation-model group. He leads a team exploring frontier research and bringing it into real-world applications, and is deeply involved in the model training and algorithm stack behind Qwen's consumer applications.
2017–2025
Principal Researcher · Data, Knowledge, and Intelligence (DKI) Group
At the Data, Knowledge, and Intelligence (DKI) Group of Microsoft Research Asia, he served as Principal Researcher, advancing spreadsheet intelligence, automated data analysis, and large language models, and contributing to Excel Copilot, Excel Ideas, and Forms Ideas.
2008–2017
Undergraduate, Computer Science · Ph.D., IIIS
He studied in Tsinghua's Department of Computer Science and Technology (2008–2012) and earned his Ph.D. from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS) (2012–2017). He founded the Lab μ Geek Association and Club ε Neuroscience Interest Group, leading 50+ students to build and promote TUNet, Tsinghua Now, and CaμsKit.
Alibaba's all-in-one AI assistant for conversations, research, document and data analysis, writing, presentations, coding, study, and image and video creation.
Copilot in Excel helps users work with data through formula-column suggestions, insights in charts and PivotTables, and highlights of noteworthy data.
A core Excel capability spanning table detection and parsing, semantic understanding, and automatic recommendations of analyses and insights.
An AI system in Microsoft Forms for survey distribution, response collection, and automatic analysis and recommendations, helping designers improve surveys and understand large response sets.
A Tsinghua campus-network app for Android and iOS that automates sign-in and helps users manage and protect their accounts; it was adopted by nearly 20,000 Tsinghua users.
A Tsinghua campus-life assistant that presents learning-platform updates and schedules as prioritized cards, with utilities such as a GPA calculator and study-room seat lookup.
An information-service suite for large campus events, including enterprise Wi-Fi deployment, a WeChat wall, lottery pages, and Danmaku; it served about 20 large events within one year.
Corresponding author
