Who is Nathan Chen, the Chinese teen AI prodigy being courted by Silicon Valley?

A 17-year-old artificial intelligence researcher formerly with Moonshot AI has announced his departure for the United States, sparking intense speculation about his next move amid heated competition for elite talent between Silicon Valley and China’s tech hubs.

Nathan Chen Guangyu wrote on social media on Thursday that he had left the Beijing-based start-up after less than a year, describing his time there as “the best [year] of my life so far”.

The announcement caught many industry observers by surprise, given Chen’s brief tenure and the timing – coming just months ahead of Moonshot’s anticipated initial public offering in Hong Kong.

It also follows a string of successful releases by the start-up, including its latest flagship K3 model in July. The release sparked concern in Washington that the capability gap between US and Chinese frontier AI models had narrowed to its closest point yet.