Ant Group Unveils Elite AI Researchers to Attract Top Graduate Talent
Ant Group, a major player in fintech affiliated with Alibaba Group Holding, has introduced its leading AI researchers publicly for the first time. This move is part of its “Plan A” recruitment program, designed to attract exceptional graduates for projects targeting artificial general intelligence (AGI).
The program highlights 12 distinguished mentors who will guide applicants from premier universities through AI research initiatives. These mentors bring global experience from top institutions and tech companies, making Ant's offer compelling amid fierce competition for AI talent in China’s technology sector.
Meet the Mentors Driving Ant’s AI Ambitions
- Wu Yi: Former researcher at OpenAI in San Francisco, holding a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.
- Le Zhenzhong: Previously a scientist at Google AI, with a degree from Carnegie Mellon University.
- He Zhengyu: PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology; developed the fastest Max-flow algorithm on GPUs at the time.
- Cai Wei: Stanford graduate and former senior algorithm engineer at Google; contributed to Google Image Search and Cloud Vision API.
- Shen Chunhua: Renowned AI researcher with 87,000 Google Scholar citations and an H-index of 137; advanced research in target detection and instance segmentation.
- Yang Ming: Holds a doctorate from Northwestern University; founding member of Facebook AI Research.
- Zheng Da: Doctorate from Johns Hopkins University; leads the graph computing lab at Ant Technology Research Institute.
These researchers bring deep expertise in machine learning, computer vision, and graph computing, which are key areas in advancing AI capabilities. Shen Chunhua’s work, for instance, has pushed forward statistical machine-learning techniques applicable in complex visual recognition tasks.
Context: Competition for AI Talent in China’s Tech Industry
Ant Group’s recruitment push comes as other Chinese tech giants aggressively seek AI researchers. This follows breakthroughs by startups like DeepSeek, which built a strong team of over 100 young scientists to develop advanced AI models.
For those interested in the broader landscape of AI talent acquisition, Nature’s coverage on global AI research trends offers valuable insights. Additionally, the arXiv AI research repository remains a crucial resource for tracking cutting-edge developments.
Ant’s approach, leveraging high-profile mentors as direct guides for incoming talent, provides practical learning opportunities that can accelerate innovation. It’s a strategy designed not just to recruit but to integrate researchers into ambitious AGI projects with real-world impact.
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