A co-founder of the artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Baichuan, one of China’s four so-called AI tigers, has left the company, marking the exit of a high-profile executive who was pivotal to monetisation efforts at the company, as domestic competition intensifies.
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Hong Tao, who headed Baichuan’s monetisation team, left the company for “personal reasons”, the Beijing-based start-up said in a statement on Tuesday. Baichuan said it was “grateful for his dedication and contributions”, which include building the monetisation team in the early days of its founding last year, paving the way for the company’s rapid development.
The move was first reported by Chinese technology news outlet 36Kr.
Hong’s departure is the latest in a series of high-level changes across Chinese AI companies that are jostling for market share in an increasingly crowded field. As the market has become saturated, a price war has emerged among AI service providers.
In August, 01.AI, a start-up founded by venture capitalist and former Google China president Lee Kai-fu, lost its vice-president Huang Wenhao to ByteDance.
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