# Charles Fan

> Charles Fan is the co-founder and CEO of MemVerge, an electrical engineer whose career spans Rainfinity, EMC, VMware and Cheetah Mobile. He helped build file virtualization at Rainfinity, established EMC’s China R&D center and led VMware’s storage business behind Virtual SAN. At MemVerge, he has moved from memory infrastructure to persistent context for AI agents, including the open-source MemMachine project and the MemoryBox consumer beta.

- **Role:** Co-founder & CEO at MemVerge
- **Organizations:** MemVerge, Rainfinity, EMC, VMware, Cheetah Mobile
- **Education:** B.E., Electrical Engineering, summa cum laude, The Cooper Union, M.S., Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology
- **Known for:** Co-founded Rainfinity and served as CTO; EMC acquired it in 2005 for approximately $90 million in cash., Established EMC’s China R&D center., Founded VMware’s storage business unit and led the team behind Virtual SAN.

## Career timeline

- **1998** — Co-founded Rainfinity, emerging from Caltech research.
- **2001** — Completed his electrical engineering doctorate at Caltech.
- **2005** — Joined EMC through its acquisition of Rainfinity.
- **After 2005** — Established EMC’s China R&D center.
- **Before 2016** — Served as VMware SVP/GM and founded the storage business unit behind Virtual SAN.
- **2016** — Named CTO of Cheetah Mobile on February 17, responsible for global R&D and Silicon Valley expansion.
- **2017** — Co-founded MemVerge with Shuki Bruck and Yue Li.
- **2025** — MemVerge launched the open-source MemMachine project on September 23.
- **2026** — Co-authored a MemMachine paper published on arXiv April 6; MemVerge announced MemoryBox’s beta August 6.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Rainfinity and served as CTO; EMC acquired it in 2005 for approximately $90 million in cash.
- Established EMC’s China R&D center.
- Founded VMware’s storage business unit and led the team behind Virtual SAN.
- Co-founded and leads MemVerge.
- Co-authored the 2026 paper MemMachine: A Ground-Truth-Preserving Memory System for Personalized AI Agents.

## Latest updates

- **2026-08** — MemVerge announced the MemoryBox personal AI memory beta on August 6.
- **2026-04** — Fan was listed as a co-author of the MemMachine paper posted to arXiv on April 6.
- **2025-12** — MemVerge announced expanded MemMachine memory features, developer tools and integrations.
- **2025-09** — MemVerge launched MemMachine as an open-source project with enterprise offerings.

## Links

- Website: https://memverge.ai/company/leadership
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesfan1

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/charles-fan
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-13