Andrew Yao

Andrew Yao, widely-considered to be one of the most influential computer scientists of his generation, has left an indelible imprint on China’s approach to AI.

A Turing Award winner and the Dean of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences at Tsinghua University, Yao has reportedly shaped some of China's biggest AI startups and a generation of academics. His students have gone on to found companies worth billions of dollars, like the software company Megvii and the autonomous vehicle company Pony.ai. Others have secured positions at top universities like Stanford and Princeton.

Since 2018, Yao has established four different AI Institutes across China, focusing on foundational research. Already in 2024, he has been appointed as head of Tsinghua’s newly-created College of AI, and was praised by President Xi Jinping for his unwavering dedication and remarkable achievements in teaching and research.
Yao has also become a leading voice in discussions of AI safety, vocal on the potentially catastrophic risks posed by future systems that might autonomously execute cyberattacks or assist in creating weapons of mass destruction.