Kai-Fu Lee
Founder of 01.AI and Sinovation Ventures
An AI scientist and investor who founded Microsoft Research Asia, led Google China, and now runs Sinovation Ventures and the AI company 01.AI.
Biography
Kai-Fu Lee is a Taiwanese computer scientist, investor and author. Born in Taipei, he moved to the United States as a child, earned a bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Columbia University in 1983 and a PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon in 1988, where his dissertation on the Sphinx speech recognition system drew wide notice.
After two years on the Carnegie Mellon faculty he worked at Apple from 1990 to 1996, then at Silicon Graphics. In 1998 he moved to Microsoft and helped establish Microsoft Research in Beijing, later Microsoft Research Asia, as founding director; he returned to the United States in 2000 and was corporate vice president of interactive services until 2005. He then served as president of Google China until 2009, when he founded Sinovation Ventures, originally Innovation Works. In 2023 he founded the AI company 01.AI. He wrote AI Superpowers (2018) and AI 2041 (2021) and was named to TIME's 2023 list of the 100 most influential people in AI.
Notable contributions
Developed the Sphinx speech recognition system
His 1988 doctoral dissertation described Sphinx, a large-vocabulary, speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system that drew wide notice in the field.
Founded Microsoft Research China
Played a key role in establishing Microsoft Research in Beijing, which became Microsoft Research Asia, regarded as one of the best computer science labs in the world.
Founded Sinovation Ventures
Founded the venture capital firm Innovation Works in 2009, later renamed Sinovation Ventures.
Founded 01.AI
Founded 01.AI, a Chinese artificial intelligence company, in 2023.
Career history
President of Google China
Founding director of Microsoft Research China and corporate vice president
Principal research scientist
