Who would have thought that the intern who was fired by the company for attacking the ByteDance large model training project and sued for 8 million yuan
would not only return to the AI industry but also secure tens of millions of dollars in financing
On July 13th, according to media reports citing informed sources, Tian Keyu has entered the world model field for entrepreneurship
The project is incubated and led by Meng Xing, a partner at Wuyuan Capital, with financing amounting to tens of millions of dollars and a total valuation of about 200 million dollars
From being fired by a major company to becoming the first author of the best paper at an AI top conference, and then to starting a business with a valuation of 200 million dollars, Tian Keyu's experience seems to encompass the three words "genius," "controversy," and "comeback."
The "Grievance" between Genius and ByteDance
Tian Keyu is a doctoral student at Peking University, graduated from the School of Software at Beihang University, with research focused mainly on deep learning optimization, generative models, and reinforcement learning
In the academic circle, his credentials are quite impressive
In 2024, the VAR image generation paper he participated in won the best paper award at NeurIPS
In simple terms, this paper proposed a new way of generating images, challenging the mainstream diffusion models of the time in terms of image quality, generation speed, and scalability
The related project also received over 4,400 stars on GitHub
However, Tian Keyu became known to the public not for his papers, but because of a controversy that occurred during his internship at ByteDance
From 2021 to August 2024, Tian Keyu interned at ByteDance, participating in research on hyperparameter optimization and reinforcement learning algorithms
In November 2024, ByteDance released an internal report stating that a former intern, dissatisfied with the team's resource allocation, maliciously attacked the model training task of the team by writing and modifying code, causing significant resource wastage
This intern was later pointed to be Tian Keyu
ByteDance quickly terminated his internship agreement and reported the situation to the Sunshine Integrity Alliance, the Corporate Anti-Fraud Alliance, and Tian Keyu's school
There are reports that Tian Keyu's attack affected over 8,000 GPUs, causing ByteDance losses of tens of millions of dollars
However, Tian Keyu subsequently denied attacking the model training task multiple times, claiming that the actual perpetrator was another intern, and even reported that he was a victim of slander
ByteDance, on the other hand, believed that Tian Keyu not only engaged in the behavior but also failed to recognize the problem afterwards, leading them to decide to take the matter to court
On November 25, 2024, the case of ByteDance suing Tian Keyu was officially accepted by the People's Court of Haidian District in Beijing
ByteDance's demands to the court included compensation for infringement losses of 8 million yuan, reasonable expenses of 20,000 yuan, and a public apology
More dramatically, just ten days after ByteDance sued Tian Keyu, the paper he participated in won the best paper award at NeurIPS 2024
On one side were ByteDance's serious disciplinary reports and an 8 million yuan compensation claim; on the other side was a global AI top conference best paper award
As a result, Tian Keyu became one of the most controversial young researchers in the AI industry
Starting Up with "World Models"
After being fired by ByteDance, Tian Keyu temporarily disappeared from public view
Now, his whereabouts have finally been revealed
Business registration information shows that Tian Keyu has become the legal representative or executive of several companies, including Beijing Lanzu Network Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Lantan Network Technology Co., Ltd., and Sanya Haitang District Carbon Blue Network Technology Studio
The company's business scope includes computer technology, AI hardware, intelligent robots, as well as research and promotion of artificial intelligence technology
From the company's business scope and team background, it appears that Tian Keyu's chosen direction this time is not a typical large model application, but rather the currently hot "world model" in the capital market
The so-called world model can be simply understood as enabling AI not only to chat and draw but also to understand spatial, motion, and causal relationships in the real world and predict what will happen next.
Applications like autonomous driving, robotics, embodied intelligence, and AI video generation may all require world models as fundamental capabilities.
According to informed sources, Tian Keyu's startup project was incubated and invested in by Meng Xing, a partner at Wuyuan Capital, and has completed tens of millions of dollars in financing, with a total valuation of about 200 million dollars
Meng Xing is not an average investor
He previously worked at JPMorgan and Shunwei Capital, before joining Didi as the COO of the autonomous driving company. In 2024, he joined Wuyuan Capital and began focusing on early-stage technology project incubation
From being fired by ByteDance and being sued for 8 million yuan to winning the best paper at a top conference, and then starting a business with a valuation of 200 million dollars, Tian Keyu's story is indeed dramatic enough.
However, the willingness of capital to invest does not mean that the controversy has disappeared
For Tian Keyu, what he truly needs to prove next is not how strong his paper is or how high the financing amount is, but rather what product this company valued at 200 million dollars can ultimately produce
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