South Korean media: Chinese 90s-born who have taken over artificial intelligence (AI)

¬ ABC (American-born) vs. CBC (China-born)... AI is the game of the Chinese

¬ Chinese 90s-born who have taken over the industry

Meta, a major US tech company, acquired the AI startup Manus, known as the "second DeepSeek," for 2 billion US dollars (about 29 billion South Korean won) in December last year. Originally established in China and later moved to Singapore, Manus launched a general AI agent (a secretary) capable of handling complex tasks such as programming, with an annual sales revenue of 100 million US dollars. The founder and CEO, Xiao Hong, born in 1992, graduated from the School of Software Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. He has successively founded startups that developed enterprise productivity tools and AI tools. In fact, Meta invested 2 billion US dollars solely to recruit Xiao Hong.

Chinese people born in the 1990s are performing exceptionally well in the global AI industry. Some grew up in China and participated in the development of Chinese AI technology, while others were born in China but play a core role in major US tech companies. Additionally, second-generation Chinese-American immigrants in Silicon Valley have also shown remarkable performance. Due to the important roles played by Chinese developers in both the US and Chinese AI industries, some have humorously referred to the final AI technology war between the US and China as a conflict between "CBC" (China-born Chinese) and "ABC" (American-born Chinese).

Youth Leading AI Development in China

Recently, young engineers who have grown up and studied in China are leading the development of Chinese AI technology. China has a strong preference for engineering, producing 1.3 million engineering graduates each year. Due to the sheer number of engineering talents, many AI technology companies and unicorn AI startups comparable to major US tech companies have emerged. The 90s generation in China grew up during the "mobile-first" era with WeChat and Alipay, and they are a generation that grew up in an environment of massive data. They experienced educational systems like the Yao班 (Yao Class) at Tsinghua University designed to cultivate AI geniuses.

The CEO of the Chinese humanoid robot development startup Yushu Tech, Wang Xingxing, was born in 1990 and graduated from Zhejiang University of Technology and Shanghai University, earning bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering. With his experience at the Chinese drone company DJI, he founded Yushu Tech in 2016. Recently, the company launched a mass-produced humanoid robot, and it is hailed as a leader in the popularization of robots. Pan Zizheng, a core researcher at DeepSeek, and Wang Guan, the founder of the robotics startup Sapient Intelligence, are also young and highly regarded CBCs (China-born Chinese).

CBCs are not only staying in China. Many have studied in the US and remained there, becoming core members of major tech companies or returning to China to start businesses. Yang Zhilin, the CEO of the Chinese AI startup MoonshotAI, was born in China and graduated from the Computer Science Department of Tsinghua University. After studying in the US, he earned a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University and worked as a researcher at Google. Based on his work experience, he returned to China in 2023 to establish Moonshot AI, with the goal of becoming "the OpenAI of China." Zhang Guodong, born in 1995, studied in China and Canada before working at Google DeepMind. He was a founding member of Elon Musk's AI startup xAI and played a decisive role in the development of the AI model Grok.

The Real AI War Between the US and China Is a Battle Between CBCs and ABCs

ABCs are mostly second-generation immigrants raised in Chinese immigrant families. Under the relatively high educational enthusiasm of their Chinese parents, they have excelled academically from a young age and are also familiar with American culture. Most of them use the networks, capital, and free entrepreneurial environment in Silicon Valley to start their own businesses.

A representative figure of ABCs is Wang Tao, the AI head at Meta (formerly Facebook). Wang Tao's father was a physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. As a child, Wang Tao was called a "math genius and science prodigy" and learned programming on his own. Known as a teenage software engineer, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but left after only three semesters. In 2016, when he was 19 years old, he founded Scale AI. In 2021, at the age of 24, he became the youngest self-made billionaire. With Scale AI being acquired by Meta, Wang Tao became the AI head at Meta.

Guo Luxi, co-founder of Scale AI born in 1994, became the youngest self-made female billionaire among ABCs last April, surpassing pop star Taylor Swift. After leaving Scale AI due to disagreements with Wang Tao, she founded the content platform Passes in 2022.

Scott Wu, co-founder of Cognition AI, is also a Chinese-American. He was born in Louisiana, USA, in 1997 and graduated from Harvard University. His brother, Neil Wu, a former software engineer at Google Brain, is also a co-founder of Cognition AI. Due to the popularity of the AI coding agent "Devin" last year, Cognition AI's company valuation has approached 10.2 billion US dollars.

Source: Chosun Ilbo

Original article: toutiao.com/article/1856253803699200/

Disclaimer: This article represents the views of the author himself.