Meituan CEO Wang Xing breaks social media silence to show support for AI venture by long-term aide amid ChatGPT frenzy
- Wang Xing is investing in Series A financing for an AI start-up launched by Meituan co-founder and former roommate Wang Huiwen
- Meituan CEO becomes the latest Chinese tech executive to join the fray to develop a local rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT
Chinese food delivery giant Meituan’s co-founder and CEO Wang Xing, who has been largely absent from social media in recent years, broke his silence on Wednesday to support an artificial intelligence (AI) venture founded by a close aide, joining the ChatGPT frenzy in China.
In a WeChat post, visible to his friends and confirmed by the South China Morning Post, the 44-year-old entrepreneur said he was thrilled by the potential productivity of large language models (LLM) and curious about their impact on the world.
He said he would also be investing in the A-series round of fundraising by Guangnian Zhiwai, a start-up launched by Wang Huiwen, one of his closest aides and a co-founder at Meituan, and take a seat on its board.
This makes the Beijing-based tech billionaire one of the highest-profile Chinese tech executives – other than Baidu’s CEO Robin Li – to make public their plans or intentions to join the Chinese tech industry’s search for a local rival to ChatGPT, the AI conversational bot launched in November by Microsoft-backed OpenAI.
The Meituan CEO said that he “has to support” his former colleague’s start-up but did not disclose the intended investment amount.
Meituan did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.