China’s ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent seek fresh talent at ‘Olympics of AI’

Some of the world’s brightest minds in AI are expected to attend this year’s Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems

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ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent aim to recruit some of the brightest minds in AI at this year’s NeurIPS. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 7:00am, 6 Dec 2024

Chinese Big Tech firms ByteDance, Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings are looking to recruit some of the world’s brightest minds in artificial intelligence (AI) with their enhanced presence at this year’s Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), often referred to as the “Olympics of AI”.

At NeurIPS to be held in Vancouver, Canada, from December 10 to 15, TikTok parent ByteDance, Alibaba advertising unit Alimama and video-gaming giant Tencent are set to host various events on the sidelines of the conference, according to company notices. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

The three companies are currently jostling to entice more skilled recruits to work in mainland China’s fast-growing and highly competitive AI sector.

By 2030, demand in China for professionals skilled in AI product development will reach six million individuals, according to a McKinsey report published last year. For every five new AI jobs in China, there are only two qualified workers available in the market, a 2023 study by career social network site Maimai showed.

A panoramic aerial view of downtown Vancouver in Canada, which hosts the Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. Photo: Shutterstock

ByteDance’s Doubao large language model (LLM) team is organising a dinner, where its technical leaders and researchers will share their insights to invited AI professionals, academics and students. LLM is the technology underpinning generative AI services like ChatGPT.