Kai-Fu Lee, notable as a Taiwanese entrepreneur and computing expert.

From Taiwan, Kai-Fu Lee is a multifaceted individual who thrives as an entrepreneur, computer scientist, investor, and author. Presently based in Beijing, he earned his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University, where he pioneered a continuous voice recognition system that does not rely on speaker identity. He climbed the corporate ladder at tech giants like Apple, SGI, Microsoft, and Google. Notably, in 2000, he took on the role of corporate vice president for interactive services at Microsoft, signing a year-long non-compete clause that later fueled a legal dispute in 2005 involving Google and his former workplace, Microsoft.

Kai-Fu Lee actively participates in the Chinese online landscape. Between 1998 and 2000, he was instrumental as the founding director of Microsoft Research Asia. From mid-2005 to September 2009, he was at the helm of Google China. After departing from that role, he launched his venture capital initiative, Sinovation Ventures. Lee has also authored a book titled '10 Letters to Chinese College Students' and initiated the website Wǒxuǎnwǎng (我学网, translating to 'I-Learn Web') to support the ambitions of young Chinese individuals in academia and professional settings. Notably, he boasts over 50 million followers on the Chinese microblogging site, Sina Weibo.

2023

In late March, Lee founded 01.AI with an ambitious mission: to develop a competitive language model tailored for the Chinese market. This venture positions him in direct competition with other prominent entities in the Chinese tech scene, such as Sogou's Wang Xiaochuan who has been rapidly gathering talent and investment to establish rival firms akin to OpenAI in China.

The accelerating progress in generative AI is evident in the remarkable developments within the industry. After just seven months since its inception, the company unveiled its premier offer, the open-source model Yi-34B. Lee stated that launching an open large language model as their first product was a way to 'give back' to the community, emphasizing that, 'We’ve created a strong alternative' for those who found LLaMA extremely valuable.

As of now, Yi-34B stands out as the highest-ranked pre-trained large language model on Hugging Face's leaderboard, functioning as a multilingual base model (covering both English and Chinese) with an impressive 34 billion parameters—though it is comparatively smaller than other major models like Falcon-180B and Meta's LLaMa2-70B.

Latest news about Kai-Fu Lee

• The Taiwanese police have uncovered the country's largest case of cryptocurrency money laundering, involving a staggering amount of 320 million USDT (approximately 10.4 billion yuan). The alleged mastermind behind this operation, Qiu, had ties to international gambling and fraud syndicates. He was responsible for orchestrating transactions of 320 million Tether coins and was apprehended in June. Following his arrest, authorities confiscated high-value assets and are currently investigating the full extent of the operation.
• In a groundbreaking collaboration, FamilyMart in Taiwan has joined forces with BitoGroup to convert its FamiPoints loyalty program into digital currencies like USDC via the Taiwan FamilyMart App and BitoPro Exchange. This initiative intends to foster greater inclusivity and simplify access to the world of cryptocurrency, considering that loyalty points are a significant aspect of Taiwan's economy. This partnership marks a transformation from traditional in-store exchanges to an integrated online environment, further cementing Taiwan's status as the leading Web3 hub in Asia.
• Binance is gearing up to seek a cryptocurrency exchange license in Taiwan, as indicated by the Financial Supervisory Commission of Taiwan, under the Money Laundering Control Act. The licensing process includes the establishment of a local entity, applying for anti-money laundering (AML) registration, and arranging a trust or performance securities with a local banking institution. Binance has already set up a corresponding entity in Seychelles. This development comes in the wake of BitShine withdrawing from Germany and amidst the upcoming European Union regulations concerning Markets in Crypto Assets.

Latest social posts of Kai-Fu Lee