Kai-Fu Lee

Kai-Fu Lee has spent four decades at the centre of artificial intelligence, first as a research scientist inside America's biggest technology companies, then as a venture capitalist backing China's start-up boom, and now as founder of one of China's prominent large-language-model companies. Few figures bridge Silicon Valley and China's AI industry as directly as he does.

Lee earned a computer science degree from Columbia University in 1983 and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon in 1988, where his speech-recognition research became a foundation for later commercial systems. He went on to senior roles at Apple, Silicon Graphics and Microsoft, where he founded Microsoft Research Asia, before becoming president of Google China from 2005 to 2009, a period that gave him deep visibility into China's internet market.

In 2009 he founded Sinovation Ventures (originally Innovation Works), which became one of China's most prominent technology venture capital firms, backing early-stage AI, internet and hardware start-ups and helping popularise Silicon Valley-style incubation in China. His 2018 book 'AI Superpowers' cemented his reputation as a leading public commentator on the US-China AI competition.

In 2023 Lee founded 01.AI, building the open-weight Yi family of large language models and positioning the company among China's leading AI labs. Facing intense price competition in foundation models, he has since steered 01.AI toward enterprise AI infrastructure and applied agent products, with the company reportedly pursuing a Hong Kong IPO.

Through 2026 Lee has remained an outspoken commentator on the AI industry, arguing that much corporate AI adoption is superficial 'theatre' and predicting that reasoning agents will reshape how companies operate. His combination of technical credibility, investing track record and public commentary keeps him among the most closely followed voices in global AI.