Sun Tianxiang, the 27-year-old computer science PhD from Fudan University who spearheaded development of China's first open-source conversational AI model, MOSS, has officially joined Baidu. He takes over as head of the company's foundational model research division (BMU) and will also sit on Baidu's model committee (BMC).
During his doctoral studies, Sun Tianxiang was among the first to propose the concept of "large model as a service" (LMaaS), and his research was adopted by notable models including Baidu's own ERNIE 3.0. After graduating, he founded a startup called Rixingji Zhineng, focused on large-model applications.
Baidu recently restructured its AI organization, splitting large model development into two units: the foundational model R&D division (BMU) and the applied model R&D division (AMU). The latter is led by Jia Lei.