Ex-OpenAI Engineer Launches Robotics Start-Up in China and Singapore
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Former OpenAI engineer Roger Jiang has founded a new robotics company, Light Robotics, in Singapore, joining a growing number of companies racing to produce intelligent machines in China, reports the South China Morning Post.
Jiang, who left OpenAI in June 2023, established Light Robotics (Liangyuan Xinchuang in Chinese) in August. His previous work at OpenAI included contributing to the development of GPT-4 in areas such as foundational reinforcement learning from human feedback and data integrity investigations.
Light Robotics will focus on building consumer-facing companion robots, with offices established in Shenzhen and Singapore. The company is actively hiring talent in Singapore and already has an engineer based in Shanghai, according to the company's LinkedIn page and Chinese corporate database Qichacha.
Jiang's new venture is entering a highly competitive market in China, where the government is actively promoting the development of robotics. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has stated that the country should achieve mass production of humanoid robots by 2025 and establish them as a key driver of economic growth by 2027.
Numerous Chinese tech companies have showcased humanoid robots at industry expos in Beijing and Shanghai this year. The recent announcement of significant subsidies for robotics firms by the Chongqing municipal government underscores the local government's commitment to accelerating the industry's growth.
The Chinese government's focus on technological innovation, outlined in this year's central economic work conference, further emphasizes the importance of robotics and other advanced technologies in shaping the country's future economic development.