Kai-Fu Lee facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Kai-Fu Lee
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| 李開復 | |
Kai-Fu Lee in December 2007
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| Born | December 3, 1961 (age 63) |
| Citizenship | Taiwanese American (until 2011) |
| Education | Columbia University (BS) Carnegie Mellon University (PhD) |
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| Thesis | Large-vocabulary speaker-independent continuous speech recognition: The SPHINX system (1988) |
| Doctoral advisor | Raj Reddy |
Kai-Fu Lee (traditional Chinese: 李開復; simplified Chinese: 李开复; pinyin: Lǐ Kāifù; born December 3, 1961) is a Taiwanese businessman, computer scientist, investor, and writer. He is known for his work in artificial intelligence (AI). He has held important roles at major tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google. Today, he lives in Beijing, China.
Lee was involved in a legal case in 2005 between Google and Microsoft. This happened because he left Microsoft to join Google. Microsoft said he had signed an agreement not to work for a competitor for one year.
He has worked a lot in the Chinese internet industry. He helped start Microsoft Research Asia and was its first director from 1998 to 2000. Later, he became the president of Google China from 2005 to 2009. After leaving Google, he started Sinovation Ventures, a company that invests in new technology businesses. He also created a website to help young Chinese people with their studies and careers. He is very popular on Sina Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, with over 50 million followers.
In his 2018 book, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, Lee talks about how China is quickly becoming a world leader in AI. He believes China might even surpass the United States due to its large population and huge amounts of data. However, he has also said that AI, despite its power, will never be able to be truly creative or feel empathy.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Kai-Fu Lee was born in Taipei, Taiwan. His father, Li Tianmin, was a politician and historian from Sichuan, China. Lee has shared his life story in his book, Making a World of Difference, which came out in 2011.
In 1973, Lee moved to the United States. He went to Oak Ridge High School in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from Columbia University in 1983. He then received his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1988.
Lee was born a Taiwanese citizen. He also became a U.S. citizen when he was younger. In 2011, he chose to give up his U.S. citizenship and keep only his Taiwanese nationality. He said he wanted to "get back to his roots" as he got older.
Career Highlights
Academic Research and Early Work
At Carnegie Mellon University, Lee studied machine learning and pattern recognition. In 1986, he helped create a computer system called Bill that played the game Othello. This system won a national computer tournament in 1989. In 1988, he finished his Ph.D. work on Sphinx. He says this was the first system that could understand continuous speech from different speakers with a large vocabulary.
Lee has written two books and over 60 papers about speech recognition. His Ph.D. work was published as a book in 1988. He also edited another book on speech recognition in 1990.
Working at Top Tech Companies
After teaching at Carnegie Mellon for two years, Lee joined Apple Computer in 1990. At Apple (1990–1996), he led teams that developed important technologies. These included PlainTalk for speech recognition and GalaTea for text-to-speech on Mac computers.
In 1996, Lee moved to Silicon Graphics. He spent a year as a Vice President, working on web products and multimedia software.
In 1998, Lee joined Microsoft and moved to Beijing, China. He was very important in setting up Microsoft Research there. This lab, later called Microsoft Research Asia, is now known as one of the best computer science research labs in the world. Lee returned to the United States in 2000. He became a corporate vice president at Microsoft, working on interactive services until 2005.
Moving from Microsoft to Google
In July 2005, Kai-Fu Lee left Microsoft to join Google. Google offered him a very large compensation package.
Microsoft then sued Google and Lee in a Washington state court. Microsoft claimed Lee was breaking an agreement he signed. This agreement said he could not work for a competitor for one year after leaving Microsoft. Microsoft argued that Lee would share secret information with Google if he worked there.
A judge first stopped Lee from working on Google projects that competed with Microsoft. Later, the judge allowed Lee to work for Google but with some limits. He could recruit employees and talk to government officials in China. However, he could not work on technologies like web search or speech recognition until the case went to trial. He also could not set budgets or research plans for Google in China.
Before the trial, in December 2005, Google and Microsoft settled the dispute. The details of the settlement were kept private.
At Google China, Lee helped the company grow in the Chinese market. He oversaw the launch of the Google.cn website. He also built strong teams of engineers and scientists there.
On September 4, 2009, Lee announced he was leaving Google. He said it was a good time to move on because Google China had a strong leadership team. Alan Eustace, a senior Google vice-president, praised Lee for improving Google's services in China. A few months after Lee left, Google announced it would stop censoring its search results and move its servers out of mainland China.
Sinovation Ventures
Lee is also an active investor. He helps new technology companies get started and grow.
On September 7, 2009, he announced a new investment fund called "Innovation Works." This fund, later renamed "Sinovation Ventures", aimed to invest in early-stage technology startups in China. It focused on internet, mobile internet, and cloud computing businesses. The fund attracted many investors, including Steve Chen (co-founder of YouTube) and Foxconn.
In September 2010, Lee talked about two Google Android projects for Chinese users. These were Tapas, a smartphone system for Chinese users, and Wandoujia (SnapPea), a desktop phone manager for Android.
In December 2012, Innovation Works announced it had raised another US$275 million. In September 2016, the company changed its name to "Sinovation Ventures" and raised US$674 million. By April 2018, Sinovation Ventures had over US$2 billion in total funds and had invested in more than 300 companies, mostly in China.
01.AI
In March 2023, Lee started a new company called 01.AI. This company focuses on building large language models (LLMs) for the Chinese market. In November 2023, the company released its first LLM, called Yi-34B.
Recognition and Awards
Kai-Fu Lee has received many honors for his work:
- Chairman of the World Economic Forum's Global AI Council.
- Named Asia House Asian Business Leader in 2018.
- Became a Fellow of IEEE in 2002.
- Member of the Committee of 100.
- Included in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people in 2013.
- Received honorary doctorate degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and City University of Hong Kong.
Personal Life
On September 5, 2013, Kai-Fu Lee shared on social media that he had been diagnosed with lymphoma, a type of cancer. In December 2018, he spoke about his experience. He said that before his diagnosis, he was a "maniacal workaholic." This changed suddenly when he found out he had Stage IV lymphoma.
See also
In Spanish: Kai-Fu Lee para niños
