Former Google video generation expert joins TikTok owner ByteDance amid generative AI race
- Jiang joined Google in 2017, working on content creation and deep learning for various services, including Google Ads, YouTube and the self-driving unit Waymo
- OpenAI’s text-to-video model Sora opened a new front in AI competition as tech giants allocate more resources to the next generation of applications.
A key contributor to Google’s VideoPoet video generation technology has joined TikTok owner ByteDance, as Big Tech companies on both sides of the Pacific race to advance generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools after OpenAI’s Sora stunned the world with its capabilities.
San Jose, California-based Jiang Lu, an adjunct professor at the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), has joined ByteDance’s intelligent creation team, according to his profile on the company’s internal staff messaging platform seen by the Post. Chinese tech blog Jazzyear first reported the news on Thursday.
Jiang reports to Yang Jianchao, head of intelligent creation technology, who in turn reports to Zhu Wenjia, who leads research on large language models at ByteDance, according to the profile.
The Beijing-based company did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside business hours on Sunday. Jiang did not respond to an emailed inquiry.
Jiang joined Google in 2017, working on content creation and deep learning for various services, including Google Ads, YouTube and the self-driving unit Waymo. Last year, his primary focus was VideoPoet, a large language model for video generation that was released by Google in December.
