# David Ha

> David Ha is the co-founder and CEO of Tokyo-based Sakana AI. An engineering graduate who became a Goldman Sachs derivatives trader, he taught himself modern machine learning through lunchtime reading and interactive browser experiments. That work led to Google Brain, where he researched generative models, world models and evolutionary systems. In 2023 he founded Sakana AI with Llion Jones and Ren Ito to pursue nature-inspired AI and develop AI technology in Japan.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Sakana AI
- **Organizations:** Sakana AI, Google Brain, Goldman Sachs, Stability AI
- **From:** Hong Kong, China
- **Nationality:** Canadian
- **Education:** Honours Bachelor of Science in Engineering Science, University of Toronto, Master of Mathematical Finance, University of Toronto, PhD in Multidisciplinary Sciences, University of Tokyo
- **Known for:** Led the Google Brain research team in Tokyo., Co-authored sketch-rnn, a model for vector drawings, and World Models, research on agents learning from compressed representations., Co-founded Sakana AI in Tokyo in 2023.

## Career timeline

- **Before 2016** — Worked in derivatives and became managing director and head of interest rates trading at Goldman Sachs in Japan; built and published machine learning experiments outside work.
- **2016** — Joined the Google Brain Residency program after his public experiments caught the attention of Google researchers.
- **2017** — Co-authored sketch-rnn research on machine-generated drawings.
- **2018** — Co-authored World Models with Jürgen Schmidhuber; later led Google Brain research in Tokyo.
- **Before 2023** — Worked with Stability AI before founding Sakana AI.
- **2023** — Co-founded Sakana AI in Tokyo with Llion Jones and Ren Ito.
- **2024** — Sakana AI announced a $30 million seed round and published The AI Scientist research, on which Ha is a co-author.
- **2026** — Sakana AI released Sakana Chat, Marlin and Fugu as it expanded from research into products.

## Achievements

- Led the Google Brain research team in Tokyo.
- Co-authored sketch-rnn, a model for vector drawings, and World Models, research on agents learning from compressed representations.
- Co-founded Sakana AI in Tokyo in 2023.
- Co-authored The AI Scientist research published in 2024.
- Built and publicly shared interactive machine learning experiments that helped bring him to Google Brain.
- Named to the 2025 TIME100 AI list.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Sakana AI updated Sakana Chat with Fugu Max and memory features.
- **2026-08** — Sakana Chat added Fugu, an updated Namazu model and code execution.
- **2026-06** — Sakana AI released Marlin and Fugu as commercial and developer-facing products.
- **2026-03** — Sakana AI launched Sakana Chat with the Namazu alpha model.

## Links

- Website: https://otoro.net/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hardmaru/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/hardmaru
- GitHub: https://github.com/hardmaru

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/david-ha
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-29