Latest news with #FelixTao
The Star
9 hours ago
- Business
- The Star
Hangzhou's backyard boom: The new cradle of Chinese tech startups
HANGZHOU, China: It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and dozens of people sat in the grass around a backyard stage where aspiring founders of tech startups talked about their ideas. People in the crowd slouched over laptops, vaping and drinking strawberry Frappuccinos. A drone buzzed overhead. Inside the house, investors took pitches in the kitchen. It looked like Silicon Valley, but it was Liangzhu, a quiet suburb of the southern Chinese city of Hangzhou, which is a hot spot for entrepreneurs and tech talent lured by low rents and proximity to tech companies like Alibaba and DeepSeek. 'People come here to explore their own possibilities,' said Felix Tao, 36, a former Facebook and Alibaba employee who hosted the event. Tao, who worked for Facebook and Alibaba before founding Mindverse, at Alibaba Innovation Park in Hangzhou, China. Virtually all of those possibilities involve artificial intelligence. As China faces off with the United States over tech primacy, Hangzhou has become the center of China's AI frenzy. A decade ago, the provincial and local governments started offering subsidies and tax breaks to new companies in Hangzhou, a policy that has helped incubate hundreds of startups. On weekends, people fly in from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen to hire programmers. Lately, many of them have ended up in Tao's backyard. He helped found an AI research lab at Alibaba before leaving to start his own company, Mindverse, in 2022. Now Tao's home is a hub for coders who have settled in Liangzhu, many in their 20s and 30s. They call themselves 'villagers,' writing code in coffee shops during the day and gaming together at night, hoping to harness AI to create their own companies. Hangzhou has already birthed tech powerhouses, not only Alibaba and DeepSeek but also NetEase and Hikvision. One of the many cafes that become hubs for coding during the day, in Hangzhou, China. In January, DeepSeek shook the tech world when it released an AI system that it said it had made for a small fraction of the cost that Silicon Valley companies had spent on their own. Since then, systems made by DeepSeek and Alibaba have ranked among the top-performing open source AI models in the world, meaning they are available for anyone to build on. Graduates from Hangzhou's Zhejiang University, where DeepSeek's founder studied, have become sought-after employees at Chinese tech companies. Chinese media closely followed the poaching of a core member of DeepSeek's team by the electronics company Xiaomi. In Liangzhu, many engineers said they were killing time until they could create their own startups, waiting out noncompete agreements they had signed at bigger companies like ByteDance. DeepSeek is one of six AI and robotics startups from the city that Chinese media calls the 'six tigers of Hangzhou.' Last year, one of the six, Game Science, released China's first big-budget video game to become a global hit, Black Myth: Wukong. Another firm, Unitree, grabbed public attention in January when its robots danced onstage during the Chinese state broadcaster's televised annual spring gala. Alibaba Innovation Park, a complex the tech giant leases to other tech firms, in Hangzhou, China. This spring, Mingming Zhu, the founder of Rokid, a Hangzhou startup that makes AI-enabled eyeglasses, invited the six founders to his home for dinner. It was the first time they had all met in person, Zhu said. Like him, most of the six had studied at Zhejiang University or worked at Alibaba. 'When we started, we were small fish,' Zhu said. 'But even then, the government helped out.' He said government officials had helped him connect with Rokid's earliest investors, including Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba. But some said the government support for Hangzhou's tech scene had scared off some investors. Several company founders, who asked not to be named so they could discuss sensitive topics, said it was difficult for them to attract funds from foreign venture capital firms, frustrating their ambitions to grow outside China. The nightmare situation, they said, would be to end up like ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok, whose executives have been questioned before Congress about the company's ties to the Chinese government. Founders described choosing between two paths for their companies' growth: Take government funding and tailor their product to the Chinese market, or raise enough money on their own to set up offices in a country like Singapore to pitch foreign investors. For most, the first was the only feasible option. Another uncertainty is access to the advanced computer chips that power artificial intelligence systems. Washington has spent years trying to prevent Chinese companies from buying these chips, and Chinese companies like Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. are racing to produce their own. A promenade at Dream Town, a facility for startups and one of the numerous investments in tech made by the country's government, in Hangzhou, China. So far, the Chinese-made chips work well enough to help companies like ByteDance provide some of their AI services in China. Many Chinese companies have created stockpiles of Nvidia chips despite Washington's controls. But it is not clear how long that supply will last, or how quickly China's chipmakers can catch up to their American counterparts. A seemingly inescapable concept in Hangzhou is 'agentic AI,' the idea that an artificial intelligence system could be directed to act on its own. Qian Roy, another Hangzhou entrepreneur, has developed an AI-enabled digital companion for young people that responds to their moods based on information from the Myers-Briggs personality test, which is popular among young people in China. His team programmed his app, All Time, using publicly available AI systems, including those made by DeepSeek, Alibaba and Anthropic, an American startup. Mindverse, the company cofounded by Tao, who hosted the backyard event, is working on a product that would use AI to help people manage their lives. It can send supportive daily emails to colleagues, for example, or regular text messages to parents reminiscing about family vacations. Commuters on one of several subway lines that service Alibaba's headquarters and other surrounding tech companies, in Hangzhou, China. 'I don't want the AI to just handle tasks, but to actually give you more mental space so you can unplug,' Tao said. Many in the crowd in Tao's backyard said the atmosphere in Hangzhou, set on the banks of a lake that was muse to generations of Chinese poets and painters, fueled their creativity. Lin Yuanlin started his company, Zeabur, while studying at Zhejiang University. His company provides back-end systems to people who are making apps and websites by 'vibecoding,' or using AI tools to program without deep software knowledge. Liangzhu is the perfect testing ground for his product, Lin said. He can lean over to someone in a coffee shop or wander into a neighbour's living room and learn what kind of support they need for their startups. Lin found himself going to Liangzhu so often that he moved there. Visitors by West Lake in Hangzhou, China. Many in the crowd in Tao's backyard said the atmosphere in Hangzhou, set on the banks of a lake that was muse to generations of Chinese poets and painters, fueled their creativity. Liangzhu villagers have been hosting film nights. They had recently gathered to watch The Matrix . Afterward, they decided the movie should be required viewing, Lin said. Its theme – people finding their way out of a vast system controlling society – provided spot-on inspiration. Aspiring founders in Liangzhu, even those who did not go to top universities, believe they could start the next world-changing tech company, Tao said. 'Many of them are super brave to make a choice to explore their own way, because in China that is not the common way to live your life.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Indian Express
14 hours ago
- Business
- Indian Express
The coder ‘village' at the heart of China's AI frenzy
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and dozens of people sat in the grass around a backyard stage where aspiring founders of tech startups talked about their ideas. People in the crowd slouched over laptops, vaping and drinking strawberry Frappuccinos. A drone buzzed overhead. Inside the house, investors took pitches in the kitchen. It looked like Silicon Valley, but it was Liangzhu, a quiet suburb of the southern Chinese city of Hangzhou, which is a hot spot for entrepreneurs and tech talent lured by low rents and proximity to tech companies like Alibaba and DeepSeek. 'People come here to explore their own possibilities,' said Felix Tao, 36, a former Facebook and Alibaba employee who hosted the event. Virtually all of those possibilities involve artificial intelligence. As China faces off with the United States over tech primacy, Hangzhou has become the center of China's AI frenzy. A decade ago, the provincial and local governments started offering subsidies and tax breaks to new companies in Hangzhou, a policy that has helped incubate hundreds of startups. On weekends, people fly in from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen to hire programmers. Lately, many of them have ended up in Tao's backyard. He helped found an AI research lab at Alibaba before leaving to start his own company, Mindverse, in 2022. Now Tao's home is a hub for coders who have settled in Liangzhu, many in their 20s and 30s. They call themselves 'villagers,' writing code in coffee shops during the day and gaming together at night, hoping to harness AI to create their own companies. Hangzhou has already birthed tech powerhouses, not only Alibaba and DeepSeek but also NetEase and Hikvision. In January, DeepSeek shook the tech world when it released an AI system that it said it had made for a small fraction of the cost that Silicon Valley companies had spent on their own. Since then, systems made by DeepSeek and Alibaba have ranked among the top-performing open source AI models in the world, meaning they are available for anyone to build on. Graduates from Hangzhou's Zhejiang University, where DeepSeek's founder studied, have become sought-after employees at Chinese tech companies. Chinese media closely followed the poaching of a core member of DeepSeek's team by the electronics company Xiaomi. In Liangzhu, many engineers said they were killing time until they could create their own startups, waiting out noncompete agreements they had signed at bigger companies like ByteDance. DeepSeek is one of six AI and robotics startups from the city that Chinese media calls the 'six tigers of Hangzhou.' Last year, one of the six, Game Science, released China's first big-budget video game to become a global hit, Black Myth: Wukong. Another firm, Unitree, grabbed public attention in January when its robots danced onstage during the Chinese state broadcaster's televised annual spring gala. This spring, Mingming Zhu, the founder of Rokid, a Hangzhou startup that makes AI-enabled eyeglasses, invited the six founders to his home for dinner. It was the first time they had all met in person, Zhu said. Like him, most of the six had studied at Zhejiang University or worked at Alibaba. 'When we started, we were small fish,' Zhu said. 'But even then, the government helped out.' He said government officials had helped him connect with Rokid's earliest investors, including Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba. But some said the government support for Hangzhou's tech scene had scared off some investors. Several company founders, who asked not to be named so they could discuss sensitive topics, said it was difficult for them to attract funds from foreign venture capital firms, frustrating their ambitions to grow outside China. The nightmare situation, they said, would be to end up like ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok, whose executives have been questioned before Congress about the company's ties to the Chinese government. Founders described choosing between two paths for their companies' growth: Take government funding and tailor their product to the Chinese market, or raise enough money on their own to set up offices in a country like Singapore to pitch foreign investors. For most, the first was the only feasible option. Another uncertainty is access to the advanced computer chips that power artificial intelligence systems. Washington has spent years trying to prevent Chinese companies from buying these chips, and Chinese companies like Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. are racing to produce their own. So far, the Chinese-made chips work well enough to help companies like ByteDance provide some of their AI services in China. Many Chinese companies have created stockpiles of Nvidia chips despite Washington's controls. But it is not clear how long that supply will last, or how quickly China's chipmakers can catch up to their American counterparts. A seemingly inescapable concept in Hangzhou is 'agentic AI,' the idea that an artificial intelligence system could be directed to act on its own. Qian Roy, another Hangzhou entrepreneur, has developed an AI-enabled digital companion for young people that responds to their moods based on information from the Myers-Briggs personality test, which is popular among young people in China. His team programmed his app, All Time, using publicly available AI systems, including those made by DeepSeek, Alibaba and Anthropic, an American startup. Mindverse, the company cofounded by Tao, who hosted the backyard event, is working on a product that would use AI to help people manage their lives. It can send supportive daily emails to colleagues, for example, or regular text messages to parents reminiscing about family vacations. 'I don't want the AI to just handle tasks, but to actually give you more mental space so you can unplug,' Tao said. Many in the crowd in Tao's backyard said the atmosphere in Hangzhou, set on the banks of a lake that was muse to generations of Chinese poets and painters, fueled their creativity. Lin Yuanlin started his company, Zeabur, while studying at Zhejiang University. His company provides back-end systems to people who are making apps and websites by 'vibecoding,' or using AI tools to program without deep software knowledge. Liangzhu is the perfect testing ground for his product, Lin said. He can lean over to someone in a coffee shop or wander into a neighbor's living room and learn what kind of support they need for their startups. Lin found himself going to Liangzhu so often that he moved there. Liangzhu villagers have been hosting film nights. They had recently gathered to watch 'The Matrix.' Afterward, they decided the movie should be required viewing, Lin said. Its theme — people finding their way out of a vast system controlling society — provided spot-on inspiration. Aspiring founders in Liangzhu, even those who did not go to top universities, believe they could start the next world-changing tech company, Tao said. 'Many of them are super brave to make a choice to explore their own way, because in China that is not the common way to live your life.'
Time of India
16 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Liangzhu, the coder 'village' at the heart of China's AI frenzy
HANGZHOU: It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and dozens of people sat in the grass around a backyard stage where aspiring founders of tech startups talked about their ideas. People in the crowd slouched over laptops, vaping and drinking strawberry Frappuccinos. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now A drone buzzed overhead. Inside the house, investors took pitches in the kitchen. It looked like Silicon Valley, but it was Liangzhu, a quiet suburb of the southern Chinese city of Hangzhou, a hot spot for entrepreneurs and tech talent lured by low rents and proximity to tech companies like Alibaba and DeepSeek. "People come here to explore their own possibilities," said Felix Tao, 36, a former Facebook and Alibaba employee who hosted the event. Virtually all of those possibilities involve AI. As China faces off with the US over tech primacy, Hangzhou has become the centre of China's AI frenzy. A decade ago, provincial and local govts started offering subsidies and tax breaks to new firms in Hangzhou, a policy that has helped incubate hundreds of startups. On weekends, people fly in from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen to hire programmers. Lately, many of them have ended up in Tao's backyard. Now Tao's home is a hub for coders who have settled in Liangzhu, many in 20s and 30s. They call themselves "villagers", writing code in coffee shops during the day and gaming together at night, hoping to harness AI to create their own companies. Hangzhou has already birthed tech powerhouses, including Alibaba and DeepSeek. Graduates from Hangzhou's Zhejiang University have become sought-after employees at Chinese tech firms. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Mingming Zhu, founder of Rokid that makes AI-enabled eyeglasses, said govt officials had helped him connect with Rokid's earliest investors, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma. But some said the govt support had scared off some investors. Founders said it was difficult to attract funds from foreign venture capital firms, frustrating their ambitions to grow outside China. Another uncertainty is access to the advanced computers chips. Many in Tao's backyard said the atmosphere in Hangzhou, set on the banks of a lake that was muse to generations of poets and painters, fuelled their creativity. Lin Yuanlin, whose Zeabur provides back-end systems to those making apps and websites, said he can lean over to someone in a coffee shop or wander into a neighbour's living room and learn what kind of support they need for their startups. Lin found himself going to Liangzhu so often that he moved there.
Economic Times
21 hours ago
- Business
- Economic Times
The coder 'village' at heart of China's latest AI frenzy
Synopsis Hangzhou, a suburb of China, is emerging as a prominent AI hub, attracting entrepreneurs and tech talent with government support and proximity to tech giants like Alibaba and DeepSeek. Fueled by AI fever, the city fosters startups and innovation, with DeepSeek's cost-effective AI system shaking the tech world. Agencies The Coder 'Village' at Heart of China's Latest AI Frenzy Hangzhou: It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and dozens of people sat in the grass around a backyard stage where aspiring founders of tech startups talked about their ideas. People in the crowd slouched over laptops, vaping and drinking strawberry Frappuccinos. A drone buzzed overhead. Inside the house, investors took pitches in the kitchen. It looked like Silicon Valley, but it was Liangzhu, a quiet suburb of the southern Chinese city of Hangzhou, which is a hot spot for entrepreneurs and tech talent lured by low rents and proximity to tech companies like Alibaba and DeepSeek. "People come here to explore their own possibilities," said Felix Tao, 36, a former Facebook and Alibaba employee who hosted the all of those possibilities involve artificial intelligence. As China faces off with the United States over tech primacy, Hangzhou has become the center of China's AI frenzy. A decade ago, the provincial and local governments started offering subsidies and tax breaks to new companies in Hangzhou, a policy that has helped incubate hundreds of startups. On weekends, people fly in from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen to hire many of them have ended up in Tao's backyard. He helped found an AI research lab at Alibaba before leaving to start his own company, Mindverse, in 2022. Now Tao's home is a hub for coders who have settled in Liangzhu, many in their 20s and 30s. They call themselves "villagers," writing code in coffee shops during the day and gaming together at night, hoping to harness AI to create their own companies. Hangzhou has already birthed tech powerhouses, not only Alibaba and DeepSeek but also NetEase and Hikvision. In January, DeepSeek shook the tech world when it released an AI system that it said it had made for a small fraction of the cost that Silicon Valley companies had spent on their own. Since then, systems made by DeepSeek and Alibaba have ranked among the top-performing open source AI models in the world, meaning they are available for anyone to build on. Graduates from Hangzhou's Zhejiang University, where DeepSeek's founder studied, have become sought-after employees at Chinese tech media closely followed the poaching of a core member of DeepSeek's team by the electronics company Xiaomi. In Liangzhu, many engineers said they were killing time until they could create their own startups, waiting out noncompete agreements they had signed at bigger companies like ByteDance. DeepSeek is one of six AI and robotics startups from the city that Chinese media calls the "six tigers of Hangzhou."
Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
Chinese village that is at the central of the US-China AI war
China has a new and emerging rival to America's Silicon Valley -- and it is Liangzhu, a quiet suburb on the outskirts of Hangzhou. The city is one of China's fastest-growing centers of artificial intelligence development. Describing a scene on a Saturday afternoon in the city, a report in New York Times said, "...dozens of people sat in the grass around a backyard stage where aspiring founders of tech startups talked about their ideas." A former Facebook and Alibaba employee who hosted the event, Felix Tao told NYT, 'People come here to explore their own possibilities.' According to The New York Times report, virtually every conversation at startup and corporate gatherings in this city circles back to artificial intelligence — the technology at the heart of China's push to compete with the United States in the global tech arena and the one China and America are fighting for supremacy. Hangzhou is home to Alibaba, DeepSeek and many other AI giants Hangzhou has long been a magnet for talent and innovation, home to Chinese tech giants like Alibaba, NetEase, and surveillance technology company Hikvision. More recently, the city has given rise to DeepSeek, a fast-growing AI firm that captured international attention in January after unveiling a powerful open-source model it said cost a fraction of its Western equivalents. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like An engineer reveals: One simple trick to get internet without a subscription Techno Mag Learn More Undo DeepSeek is one of what Chinese media now call the 'six tigers of Hangzhou' — a group of AI and robotics startups making headlines at home and abroad. Game Science, another member of the cohort, produced Black Myth: Wukong, the first Chinese-made video game to achieve global blockbuster status. Robotics firm Unitree made a splash in January when its robot dogs performed a choreographed dance during the state broadcaster's Spring Festival Gala. The AI surge in Hangzhou reportedly did not happen by accident. Over the past decade, provincial and local authorities have rolled out tax breaks and subsidies to attract tech startups, a strategy that has helped seed hundreds of companies. On weekends, investors and entrepreneurs fly in from Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen to scout talent — and often end up in Tao's backyard. Many of Liangzhu's coders are alumni of Zhejiang University, one of China's top engineering schools and the alma mater of DeepSeek's founder. Their technical skills are in such high demand that Chinese media recently covered the defection of a core DeepSeek engineer to electronics giant Xiaomi as front-page news. Still, many engineers say they are biding their time, waiting for noncompete agreements with firms like ByteDance to expire before launching startups of their own. Biggest challenge of Chinese companies -- tough to attract foreign capital Yet Hangzhou's rise as a tech powerhouse has not come without complications. Several founders told The New York Times that the same government support that fueled their early growth now makes it harder to attract foreign capital. International investors are increasingly wary of Chinese tech firms, especially those with ties to the state. Some fear their companies could meet the same fate as ByteDance, the parent of TikTok, whose executives have faced tough scrutiny in the United States over national security concerns. The dilemma has left founders with limited options. 'You either take government funding and stay focused on China, or raise enough on your own to open an office in Singapore or elsewhere,' one founder said, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. 'Most people can't afford the second route.' Adding to the uncertainty is the question of access to the chips that power advanced AI models. The U.S. government has imposed increasingly strict export controls on high-performance semiconductors, making it difficult for Chinese firms to buy processors from companies like Nvidia. In response, Chinese tech giants — including Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation — are racing to build domestic alternatives. While Chinese-made chips have enabled some companies, such as ByteDance, to offer limited AI services locally, industry experts say it remains unclear whether those supplies can keep up with demand — or how long it will take for China to achieve true chip independence. AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
