Chinese entrepreneur Yang Qilin’s achievement in artificial intelligence has sparked debate on social media about why he left the United States and founded his startup in China.
When Chinese AI startup Moonshot launched the Kimi K3, a new model described as being almost as advanced as Claude Fable 5 or GPT 5.6 Sol, a huge debate erupted on social media about how this could be a US success and not a China success, as Moonshot’s founder, Yang Qilin, earned a PhD in the US but then returned to China.The discussion began after Ross Salakhutdinov, Zhilin’s supervisor at Carnegie Mellon University, congratulated him on Kimi’s recent release. “It feels like just yesterday that Zhilin was graduating from my lab at CMU, jointly with William Cohen,” Salakhutdinov wrote on X. “Not only did he complete his PhD in four years, but he also made truly fundamental contributions to machine learning during his time at CMU.”“What an amazing career! Congratulations again to Zhilin, and thank you to you and the entire Kimi team for everything you do for the open source community,” he wrote.The post went viral as social media users raised questions as to why Zhilin is no longer in the United States.Ankit Gupta, an Indian-origin tech entrepreneur, said the US “stupid visa policy” should be one of the factors that makes Moonshot a Chinese startup and not an American one.
“The fact that we don’t include a green card for every AI PhD done in America is stupid. It would make more sense to confiscate their passports and force them to stay,” Gupta wrote.
Who is Yang Qilin?
Zhilin is a Chinese entrepreneur and co-founder of Moonshot AI. He came to the United States to obtain his Ph.D. During his PhD, Yang worked at Google Brain and Meta Platforms. After earning his PhD, he returned to China to focus on his startup, although he could have pursued postdoctoral opportunities at Stanford or MIT.
Apple also reportedly tried to recruit him. But he decided to return to China.“As a student on an F-1 visa, it is very difficult to start a company unless you know a US citizen who can help meet the employer-employee relationship requirements. The system rewards having a job because that is how taxes are collected. It takes years to build a startup, but the visa rules were not designed with this reality in mind. The F-1 visa system is built on employment, not entrepreneurship.”
“It’s broken for the founders,” one wrote.This discussion comes at a time when the US administration is working to further tighten the F-1 visa by making it time-restricted. F-1 visa holders are now allowed to remain in the United States for four years. They must request an extension if they want to extend their stay which will be done through USCIS.
