China poaches U.S. AI talent from OpenAI as it eyes Claude, ChatGPT

Tencent’s Chief AI Scientist Yao Shunyu (R) discusses the tech outlook with Tencent

CNBC | Evelyn Cheng

BEIJING — A former OpenAI researcher is now chief AI scientist for Tencent in China, and wants to build artificial general intelligence.

It’s a sign of a shift in the U.S.-China tech race.

AI with human-level or above capabilities (AGI) has long been the goal of U.S. companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet, which acquired British startup DeepMind.

Chinese companies rushing to catch up on AI and facing U.S. chip controls have instead focused on ways to use the technology in applications from factories to consumer electronics. Baidu CEO Robin Li previously predicted it would take until at least 2034 to achieve AGI, in contrast to Elon Musk’s 2026 forecast at the time.

But as Chinese companies grab talent from Silicon Valley, they’re increasingly bringing the U.S. vision with them.

“My personal goal is that in China we should establish a long-term AGI organization,” said Tencent Chief AI Scientist Yao Shunyu, who joined the company in the last year after leaving his OpenAI role, in remarks CNBC translated from Mandarin.

Yao was discussing the next stage of AI development on-stage Friday with Tencent’s Cloud executive Dowson Tong at the company’s event in Beijing co-organized with local authorities. A senior Beijing official gave opening remarks.

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Yao said Friday his vision for AGI will require foundational knowledge, products and frontier exploration.

“I don’t think ChatGPT or Claude will be the only super-app,” Yao said, saying untapped potential is in the “trillions of dollars.” Performance of an AI tool is most important, followed by cost, he said, adding that the path forward in China is with smaller AI models and more consistent performance on basic tasks.

His optimism contrasted with growing caution on AI in the U.S.

Anthropic on Thursday warned that frontier models are nearing the point where they can improve themselves without human oversight. The company called for an industry slowdown or pause in new model development to stave off disruption to society.

The San Francisco-based startup earlier this year urged Washington to maintain the U.S. lead over Chinese models. Anthropic has emphasized AI safety from its founding and drawn criticism from rivals that its safety warnings are designed to hobble competition.