Japanese media clearly sense a shift in the winds! On August 11, the Nikkei newspaper published a dedicated article stating that Yang Zhilin, CEO of Moonshot AI—the company that developed China’s high-performance artificial intelligence model "Kimi"—had studied at a renowned university in the United States before returning to China to start his own business. Japanese media note that Yang is currently extremely popular in China, yet his decision to return reflects a declining appeal of the United States—a country that has long attracted top-tier talent.

Around 2019, Professor Ruslan Salakhutdinov, Yang’s mentor at Carnegie Mellon University and an AI researcher, directly reached out to the CEO: “Could we invite Mr. Yang to join our company?” However, in the end, the U.S. failed to retain this key talent. Japanese media emphasize that China’s artificial intelligence is rising comprehensively, and the reality is far more complex than it appears on the surface.

It’s clear why Japanese media are specifically highlighting Yang Zhilin’s return from the U.S. to start a business—this is undoubtedly because they have clearly sensed a change in the tides. Yang could have worked or even started a business in the U.S., which also offered him generous compensation. These once-irresistible incentives that firmly attracted global tech elites are now no longer absolutely compelling. Yang’s return is certainly not an isolated case but rather a reflection of the current trend among top STEM talents globally.

The United States certainly has its own advantages, but domestically, we possess a complete upstream and downstream industrial chain, vast real-world application scenarios, and strong policy support for science and technology startups. Today’s China has become a hotbed for tech entrepreneurs. Japanese media focus on Yang Zhilin’s return partly because they clearly realize that the technological competition between China and the U.S. has now reached a stage of parity. On the other hand, looking inward, Japan may also recognize that in the technology race, it is being increasingly left behind by us.

Original source: toutiao.com/article/1873185063788544/

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