Horizon Robotics, Founder & CEO

Founder of Institute of Deep Learning (IDL) at Baidu Inc.

The Youth Council (Honorary)——Kai YU

Dr. Yu Kai, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Horizon Robotics, is a world-renowned machine learning expert, and an important promoter of the application of deep-learning technology in China, especially in the smart vehicle sector.

In 2015, Dr. Yu Kai founded Horizon Robotics, a leading supplier of energy-efficient computing solutions for smart vehicles. Under his leadership, Horizon Robotics first realized the commercialization of driver assistance technology in China's passenger-vehicle sector through the integration of hardware and software. Since 2019, Horizon Robotics launched a series of automotive processors, Journey 2, Journey 3 and Journey 5. In 2020, Horizon Robotics kicked off the first year of mass production of preinstallation of China's automotive-grade processors from 0 to 1. To date, Horizon Robotics has signed mass production projects for more than 70 vehicle models with more than 20 vehicle companies while the cumulative shipments of its processors have exceeded 2 million as the company collaborates with partners to explore and create value for the sector from 1 to N. 

From 2012 to 2015, Dr. Yu Kai was executive head of Baidu Institute of Deep Learning (IDL) and executive president of Baidu Research. He established and led projects including IDL, Baidu's automated driving team and Baidu Deep Learning Platform PaddlePaddle, and led his team to win the "Baidu highest award" three times. From 2006 to 2012, Dr. Yu Kai served as director of the media laboratory at NEC Labs America (one of the pioneering laboratories in the world engaged in the research and development of convolutional neural networks). In 2011, Dr. Yu was invited as an Adjunct Faculty to teach a graduate-level class in the Computer Science Department of Stanford University. In his academic research career, Dr. Yu has published over 100 research papers in prestigious conferences and journels, being cited by peers for over 30,000 times.  

Yu Kai received his Bachelor's Degree and Master's Degree from Nanjing University in 1998.