In September of last year, Time magazine included Kai-Fu Lee, the AI scientist and founder of “01.AI,” a company specializing in AI development, in its list of the 100 most influential figures in the field. Despite the list featuring prominent names such as Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, Kai-Fu Lee solidified his position as one of the leading pioneers of AI, spearheading China’s efforts to compete with advanced technologies like “ChatGPT.”
Personal and Academic Journey
Kai-Fu Lee was born in Taiwan in 1961, where he obtained Taiwanese citizenship despite his father’s Chinese origins. He moved with his family to the United States in 1973, where he completed his undergraduate studies in computer science at Columbia University in 1983, followed by a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in 1988. During his studies, he presented the “Sphinx” model, the first AI speech recognition model.
Professional Achievements
Kai-Fu Lee began his professional career at Apple in 1990, where he led the research and development division and contributed to the creation of systems such as “Casper” for voice recognition and “Blintalk” for text-to-speech conversion. He later moved to Microsoft in 1998, where he founded its research branch in Asia, which became a global reference in computer science. In 2005, he joined Google to establish its office in China, sparking a legal dispute with Microsoft over an alleged non-compete agreement violation.
Entrepreneurship
After leaving Google in 2009, Kai-Fu Lee founded the “Sinovation” investment fund with a capital of $2.5 billion to support tech entrepreneurs in China. In 2023, he launched his own company, “01.AI,” aiming to compete with “ChatGPT,” securing funding exceeding $1 billion from prominent investors such as Alibaba.
Vision for the Future
Kai-Fu Lee believes that artificial intelligence will radically transform the world, predicting the near-future development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). He is confident that China possesses the linguistic resources and massive databases necessary to lead the world in this field.
With his distinguished academic and professional career, Kai-Fu Lee has proven to be more than just a name on a list—he is one of the minds shaping the future of artificial intelligence.
