Alibaba Group Holding chief technology officer (CTO) Wu Zeming has joined the company’s elite steering committee, joining co-founders Jack Ma and Joe Tsai in playing a central role in formulating the tech empire’s strategy.

According to Alibaba’s website, the other members of the committee of the Alibaba Partnership are group CEO Eddie Wu Yongming and Jiang Fan, CEO of the e-commerce business unit.

Born in 1982, the CTO represents a younger generation of tech executives climbing Alibaba’s corporate ladder. After joining the firm in 2004, he became one of the early architects of the technology infrastructure powering Alibaba’s massive e-commerce ecosystem. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Wu’s elevation to the partnership committee underscores Alibaba’s aggressive pivot towards artificial intelligence.

Earlier this year, Wu joined a new internal task force dedicated to funnelling more resources into developing foundational AI models. In this role, he is responsible for building the company’s next-generation business technology and AI inference platforms.

The committee of the Alibaba Partnership acts as the governing body for the company’s broader 18-member partnership, a critical pillar of the company’s corporate governance. According to Alibaba’s website, its main responsibilities include “administering partner elections” and “managing the relevant portion of the deferred cash bonus pool”.