17-year-old ex-Moonshot AI researcher reported to join US startup Discovery Loop
In short
A social media account that tracks US AI talent moves said Chen Guangwei, a 17-year-old who left China's Moonshot AI, has joined the US startup Discovery Loop. Chen has not named his next employer, and Discovery Loop said it does not comment on personnel matters, so the move is not confirmed.
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A 17-year-old researcher who left the Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI is reported to have joined the US startup Discovery Loop. Chen Guangwei (천광위) has not said where he is going next, and Discovery Loop said it does not comment on personnel matters, Yonhap, Dong-A Ilbo, Hankook Ilbo and Asia Economy reported, citing South China Morning Post (SCMP). [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
The claim came from a social media account called Aper Grok (아퍼 그록), which tracks AI talent moves in the US. Yonhap said the account posted it the day before 21 October. Dong-A Ilbo and Hankook Ilbo date the SCMP report to 20 October, while Asia Economy dates it to 21 October. Hankook Ilbo said Chen did not immediately respond to SCMP's query. Asia Economy said the move had not been confirmed. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
Chen joined the Kimi team at Moonshot AI as a machine learning researcher in November last year, aged 16, and took part in developing the base architecture of the Kimi K3 model. Hankook Ilbo said he contributed to technology that improved the cost efficiency of Kimi. Asia Economy said he was co-first author of the paper "Attention Residuals" that the Kimi team published in March, which proposed a design raising computing efficiency by about 25% and became the base architecture of Kimi K3. It added that Tesla CEO Elon Musk praised the research. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
Chen announced his departure on social media, saying he was especially grateful to Moonshot for hiring him when he was 16. Asia Economy said the announcement came on the 15th; Dong-A Ilbo said it came last week. He said he would go to the San Francisco Bay Area, which led to speculation that he would join Anthropic, but he replied to a comment that this was not possible. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
Discovery Loop was founded in August by four former Google researchers including Jeff Dean, and aims to use AI to automate scientific research. Yonhap said Dean has compared the company's work to efforts to achieve recursive self-improvement of AI. Hankook Ilbo said Dean described this in August at the Agentic AI Summit at the University of California, Berkeley, and said early investors included Radical Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Google's parent Alphabet. The company has not yet released a product. Yonhap, Hankook Ilbo and Asia Economy said Business Insider reported last month that it is seeking funding at a valuation of about 50 billion dollars. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
Moonshot unveiled Kimi K3 in July, an open-weight model with 2.8 trillion parameters, and said it came close to top US models. Dong-A Ilbo and Hankook Ilbo said that if Chen joins Discovery Loop he would be among its youngest members, with Dong-A Ilbo attributing this to SCMP. Asia Economy also reported, citing Bloomberg, that Moonshot has confidentially applied for a Hong Kong listing. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
Why it matters
Korean outlets frame the report against a contest between the US and China for AI talent. Because neither Chen nor the company has confirmed the move, it remains an unverified report.
Key facts
- Chen Guangwei (천광위), 17, worked as a machine learning researcher on Moonshot AI's Kimi team from November last year and was deeply involved in research and development of the base architecture of Kimi K3. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
- A social media account called Aper Grok (아퍼 그록), which tracks AI talent moves in the US, said Chen had joined Discovery Loop, according to South China Morning Post (SCMP) as cited by the Korean outlets. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
- Chen has not himself said where he is going, and Discovery Loop said it does not comment on personal or personnel matters. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
- Discovery Loop was founded in August by four former Google researchers including Jeff Dean and aims to automate scientific research with AI. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
- Business Insider reported last month that Discovery Loop is seeking funding at a valuation of about 50 billion dollars. [ 1 , 3 , 4 ]
- Chen said he is going to the San Francisco Bay Area but denied, in a reply to a comment, speculation that he is moving to Anthropic. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
Confirmed by several sources
- Chen Guangwei, 17, has left Moonshot AI, where he was a machine learning researcher on the Kimi team. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
- Chen denied he was moving to Anthropic, saying "that is not possible" in reply to a comment. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
- Discovery Loop was set up in August by four former Google researchers including Jeff Dean, and has not yet released a product. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]
- Moonshot AI unveiled Kimi K3 in July, a model with 2.8 trillion parameters and open weights, and said it came close to top US models in some performance. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]
Still unclear
- Whether Chen has actually joined Discovery Loop. The claim comes from the Aper Grok account as relayed by SCMP; Chen has not named his next employer and Discovery Loop declined to comment. Asia Economy said the claim was not confirmed.
- When the Aper Grok post was made and when SCMP reported it. Yonhap says the account posted the day before 21 October, Dong-A Ilbo and Hankook Ilbo date the report to 20 October, and Asia Economy dates the SCMP report to 21 October.
- When Chen announced his departure from Moonshot AI. Asia Economy says he announced it on the 15th; Dong-A Ilbo says last week; Yonhap and Hankook Ilbo say only that he announced it recently.