Zhang Hongjiang is a computer scientist and senior executive who has become one of China’s most outspoken voices on the need to develop artificial intelligence safely.
After earning his PhD in Denmark, he worked in Singapore and Palo Alto, California, for several years. He then returned to China in the early 2000s to help set up Microsoft Research Asia, before going on to build Kingsoft into one of China’s leading software companies.
He stepped away from that business in 2016 only to return to the frontline of Chinese tech, two years later, by establishing the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI), a non-profit that brings together industry and academia.