(Yicai) Sept. 9 -- Fortune China has released its annual 40 Under 40 list honoring the young leaders the publication deems the year’s most influential, with nearly half of the people named, including Moonshot AI founder Yang Zhilin, working in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics.

In the list published yesterday, Yang, who is also chief executive of Moonshot AI, which developed the Kimi chatbot, was joined as the youngest honoree by Peng Zhihui, co-founder and chief technology officer of AI and robotics startup Agibot. Both are aged 31.

Industry experts said the list not only recognizes the personal achievements of the entrepreneurs, but also affirms the AI industry’s future development. As AI technology continues to advance and expand into new application areas, these young leaders will continue to set trends and drive business innovation in China and globally, they said.

Widely expected to exceed all technological revolutions in human history, “AI plays a symphony of innovation and transformation,” the magazine noted.

Since the launch of Beijing Shengshu Technology's text-to-video generator Vidu on July 30, it has attracted millions of users globally, mostly overseas, the startup’s co-founder and CEO Tang Jiayu said. Latin American and Southeast Asian customers create videos where they hug deceased loved ones using old photos, and these clips are very popular on TikTok, he added.

Regarding the AI competition between China and the United States, although the US leads in large language models, the two countries are at the same stage in terms of multimodal models, Tang noted. The US has an edge in computing power, while China has an advantage in power dispatch and network construction, he pointed out.

The development of AI relies on data, algorithms, and computing power, said Chen Yuqiang, co-founder and chief scientist at Beijing Fourth Paradigm Technology. There may be concerns regarding computing power, but China is not lagging in data, and the market and application scenarios are very abundant, providing an advantage, Chen added.

Young entrepreneurs are a valuable asset for China and need the support and patience of capital, as they represent the future, according to Ma Jun, founder and CEO of AI tech developer Sinsegye.

Fortune China, the China arm of US business magazine has released the 40 Under 40 Business Elites in China list since 2011, aiming to discover outstanding young innovators and changemakers. More than 500 business leaders have made it onto the annual lists.

Editor: Martin Kadiev