After 15 year career with tech giants like IBM and Alibaba, this gifted farm boy is bringing AI back home
- The AI brain helped lettuce producer Haofeng cut its water and fertiliser use by 10 per cent, saving US$2.1 million per year
After a career with some of the world’s leading tech companies, including eight years at IBM in New York and Singapore, a stint with Google in Silicon Valley, and two years with Alibaba Group in Hangzhou, China, Min Wanli decided to go back to his roots.
In June he resigned as vice-president of Alibaba Cloud to start an investment firm specialising in artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for China's traditional industries, including agriculture.
Min, 41, was born into a farmer’s family in Jinzhai County in eastern China’s Anhui province, and spent his childhood growing up in an area known as “the cradle of the generals”, where 59 of the country’s famous wartime generals were born.
Min’s mother was illiterate and his father dropped out of school after junior high school, a consequence of the decade-long Cultural Revolution instigated by chairman Mao Zedong, when millions of Chinese were deprived of the right to education and society unravelled amid the political and social upheaval from 1966 to 1976.
Born in 1978, Min avoided the chaos and soon showed great talent and interest in mathematics. In fact, he was considered very bright as a boy and only studied three years in primary school before entering secondary school.
“Going to school was like going to a nursery. My family needed to do farm work and I was too young, so I was sent to school,” said Min as he sipped on Chinese tea brewed in a traditional-style clay teapot.
