Kai-Fu Lee

Kai-Fu Lee is the CEO of Sinovation Ventures and bestselling author of AI 2041. One of the early pioneers in AI, he is credited with developing the first speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system. Over the past four decades, he has worked for world-renowned organisations, playing an integral role in developing their AI technology. Taking a nuanced position on AI, Kai-Fu believes that the technology is inherently neither good nor evil, but under the right hands, it has the potential to transform the world in the next two decades. A distinguished expert on AI, he offers his ground-breaking insights on the future applications of the technology and explores some of the risks.

A classmate of Barack Obama, Kai-Fu attended Columbia University, earning a B.S. in Computer Science. After obtaining his PhD in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in 1988, he remained with the university to serve as a Research Computer Scientist and Assistant Professor. In 1990, he joined Apple as Vice President, heading R&D for Apple Bandai Pippin, PlainTalk, GalaTea and Casper. He joined SGI as Vice President in 1996 before becoming Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, where he established Microsoft Research Asia, one of the leading computer science research labs in the world.

In 2005, Kai-Fu joined Google as Vice President, receiving an unprecedented employment package, he took the company to the next level and saw its exponential growth in the notoriously difficult Chinese market. He founded Sinovation Ventures in 2009, a prestigious venture capital firm that has worked with distinguished tech entrepreneurs, including Steve Chen and is worth over $2 billion. A globally-renowned computer scientist, he has published over 60 academic articles and is the bestselling author of AI 2041, AI Superpowers and My Journey into AI.

An eminent expert in machine learning and pattern recognition, Kai-Fu enjoys a large following, with over 50 million followers on Sina Weibo alone. A leader in the Chinese internet sector, he served as Chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Council and is a fellow of IEEE. Moreover, he was named Asia House Asian Business Leader in 2018, listed on Time 100 in 2013 and recently on Time 100 Most Influential People in AI 2023. Stating that AI will never be capable of creativity or empathy, Kai-Fu believes AI’s power lies in continuously improving with more data, eventually developing mastery of multiple domains. In his speaking engagements, he highlights his predictions for a future with AI.