Open Mic | Hu Qi from Qiming Venture Partners: From an AI Algorithm Engineer to an Investor, A Decade Journey Alongside AI

In 2026, the waves in the venture capital circle are surging once again: AI has moved from a technological concept into the deep waters of the industry, and hard - tech entrepreneurship has shifted from a "niche track" to a "mainstream consensus". Young entrepreneurs are using code and their hands to redefine the future coordinates of Chinese innovation.

Every year, the WAVES Conference hosted by 36Kr · AnYong is the annual vane of the Chinese venture capital circle. This year's WAVES 2026 is themed 'This Summer'. It is held at Liangcang Xinzao Creative Park in Panyu, Guangzhou. Over two days, we have gathered top investors, industry leaders, and emerging entrepreneurs. Through 14 in - depth round - tables and dozens of independent speeches, we have dissected the underlying logic of core tracks such as AI, hard - tech, going global, and healthcare, and witnessed how the perseverance of those 'few' has converged into a wave that changes the industry.

The following is the content of the open mic, compiled and edited by 36Kr:

Hu Qi | Executive Director of Qiming Venture Partners

Good evening, everyone. I'm Hu Qi, an investor at Qiming Venture Partners, focusing on AI. This focus is real. My master's degree is in Artificial Intelligence - Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence. As soon as I graduated, I worked on AI model algorithms and later switched to AI - related investments. I haven't left the AI field for the past decade or so.

So some friends joked that I'm the kind of person who was working on AI when it wasn't popular and still keeps working on it after it became popular.

I'm very happy to be here at 36Kr for this open mic today. Of course, I'm also under a lot of pressure. I thought if I make it funny, it seems like I'm not doing my job properly. If I don't make it funny, everyone will find it boring. So I've been in a dilemma. When I received the invitation to the 36Kr WAVES event, I thought the venture capital industry was really picking up. Now investors are even taking on 'commercial performances' - although they didn't pay me a single cent.

I studied AI at the University of Edinburgh in the UK and computer science at Wuhan University. My mom never really understood my major. She only knew it was related to computers. My family is from Northeast China. My mom always tells me, "Son, come back. Mom will find you a stable job." I said, "Mom, if I go back, the only thing I can do is repair computers. There are few job opportunities for my major in Northeast China." But she still says, "No, come back. Mom will find you a stable job."

It wasn't until these years when AI became popular. Last year when I went home and talked to my mom, I said, "Look, AI is so hot now. There are companies with a market value of hundreds of billions or even trillions." My mom then asked me, "Son, don't you know? Things that heat up quickly are easy to burn." I was stunned for a moment. Later, I thought about it, and she really made sense. In these years, I've seen many companies become popular overnight and many others fade away after two or three years. AI entrepreneurship is really cruel, with a very low survival rate.

What have we invested in over the past few years? I'd like to take this opportunity to report our work. We've invested in several relatively influential companies in recent years. At the end of 2021, we invested in Zhipu, one of the earliest investment institutions in China to invest in large - language models. Subsequently, we also invested in companies such as Jieyue Xingchen, Shengshu Technology, Wuwen Xinqiong, and Yuwei Dance.

I'm often asked by some peers and LPs: "I know you've invested in Zhipu, Jieyue Xingchen, and Shengshu Technology. Why didn't you invest in the other companies?" I found that the market is just like my mom. When I was a kid and got 90 points on a test and happily took the paper home, my mom wouldn't ask, "How did you get these 90 points?" She would only ask, "Where did the remaining 10 points go?" These questions made me realize that people have very strict requirements for investors.

I've been extremely busy in the past few years.

I remember starting from April 2023, my daily routine was basically going to bed at 2 - 3 am.

There was so much work that I couldn't finish it.

One day at the beginning of this year, I suddenly thought:

No, if I keep going like this, my body won't be able to take it.

So I decided to relax.

Read some light novels.

I found a novel and read it all night.

The more I read, the more addicted I got.

The next day when I woke up, I looked at the title of the book.

"To Live".

Of course, this is a joke. "To Live" is a classic. Teacher Yu Hua's life is harder than mine.

Later, I still thought my body couldn't bear it if I continued like this, so I got a gym membership and started going to the gym. During my workouts, I realized a truth: Venture capital and fitness are very similar. On the first day you get your gym membership or the moment you invest in a project, you're absolutely sure that you'll succeed. But after a year, you start talking about long - termism.

Actually, over the years, I've increasingly found that the entrepreneurship and investment industry is really interesting.

Entrepreneurs often call me in the middle of the night:

"Brother, are you there?"

"I'm a bit anxious recently."

Then I become a kind - hearted brother and give them psychological comfort.

But in fact, investors themselves also lack a sense of security.

They worry about whether the project will have problems and about unforeseeable events in the industry.

LPs also lack a sense of security.

They worry about the performance of the fund and the industry cycle.

So later I found that:

The whole industry might be a group of insecure people giving each other a sense of security.

Thinking about it carefully, it's quite heart - warming.

Finally, let's talk about our review and outlook on the future of AI. In 2020, when I first read the GPT - 3 paper, I was deeply impressed by the generalization ability shown by GPT - 3. By the end of 2020, I got a GPT - 3 usage interface through a third - party and was able to conduct real tests. At that time, I asked GPT - 3 a very interesting question. Different from previous NLP models, without any model training or fine - tuning on my part, GPT - 3 understood my question and gave a well - structured answer. Then I tested tasks such as user tagging, information extraction, and translation. I found that regardless of whether the final result was correct or not, GPT - 3 could give a decent answer. I was really amazed by the generalization ability of this large - language model.

We started looking for Chinese large - language model teams at the beginning of 2021 and didn't meet Zhipu until the second half of the year. Looking back now, this process was more like a two - way journey - a group of people who have long believed in AI met another group of people who have long believed in AI.

It's only been about four or five years from our investment in Zhipu at the end of 2021 to now. Looking back, the development speed of artificial intelligence in these years, whether it's technological progress, industrial influence, or commercialization progress, has far exceeded the expectations of many people at that time. Four or five years is neither long nor short, but for AI, it's long enough to turn many previous ideas into reality and to bring about huge changes in the entire industry. Qiming Venture Partners has always been confident in the long - term value of AI and looks forward to continuing to grow with excellent entrepreneurs in the future.

I'm Hu Qi from Qiming Venture Partners.

Thank you all!