Kai-Fu Lee’s personal and professional experiences feature heavily in AI Superpowers. He is, in his own words, “one of the top AI researchers in the world” (187). He was born in Taiwan in the early 1960s and relocated to Tennessee at the age of 11. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Columbia University and a PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. At Carnegie Mellon, Lee participated in cutting-edge AI research, including early forays into learning-based systems. Lee joined Apple Computer in 1990 as a research scientist and continued to work in various Silicon Valley companies, including Google and Microsoft, throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. During this time, he moved back and forth between China and the US, ultimately becoming the president of Google China.

In 2009, Lee left Google China to establish his own VC firm, Sinovation Ventures, which he continues to manage at the time of writing. Sinovation predominantly funds tech startups. While they maintained a presence in both Beijing and Silicon Valley, the latter office closed in 2019 due to economic conflict between China and the US.

Lee plays a pivotal role in AI Superpowers, not just as an author or AI expert, but as a subject of discussion in his own right.