Photo: Rico Shen / CC BY-SA 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Kai-Fu Lee is one of the few voices on AI I actually pause to listen to, precisely because he has lived on both sides of the divide he describes. Born in Taiwan, trained at Carnegie Mellon, he built Microsoft Research Asia and ran Google China before turning investor and author. That rare dual fluency in American and Chinese tech gives his predictions a credibility most pundits lack. What impresses me most is his fluid reinvention, scientist to executive to thinker, without losing intellectual seriousness. As AI reshapes everything, I trust his perspective more than the usual hype, and I keep following where his thinking goes.
Overview
Kai-Fu Lee (traditional Chinese: 李開復; simplified Chinese: 李开复; pinyin: Lǐ Kāifù; born December 3, 1961) is a Taiwanese computer scientist, investor, and author. He was the founding director of Microsoft Research China, later Microsoft Research Asia, serving from 1998 to 2000, and served as president of Google China 2005 to 2009.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Kai-Fu Lee
- Name (Japanese)
- 李開復
- Reading
- かいふ・りー
- Born
- December 3, 1961 (age 64)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Sagittarius / Ox
- Origin
- Zhonghe District, Taiwan
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- entrepreneur / computer scientist / engineer / businessperson / information scientist
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Oak Ridge High School
- University
- Carnegie Mellon University
Awards & achievements
- IEEE Fellow
- 2021 Asia's Most Influential Taiwan
- John Jay Award
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Entrepreneur — see all → · Computer scientist — see all → · More people from Taiwan →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.