# Guodong Zhang

> Guodong Zhang is a machine learning researcher and xAI co-founder whose work spans neural network optimization, uncertainty and large language models. He earned a PhD at the University of Toronto, worked at DeepMind, helped build xAI’s coding and Imagine efforts, and announced his departure in March 2026.

- **Role:** Machine learning researcher
- **Organizations:** xAI, Google DeepMind, University of Toronto, Vector Institute, Google Brain
- **Education:** PhD in Computer Science, University of Toronto, Bachelor’s in Information Engineering, Zhejiang University
- **Known for:** Co-founded xAI in 2023., Co-authored a 2019 NeurIPS paper on batch size and neural network optimization., Co-authored Deformable Convolutional Networks, presented orally at ICCV 2017.

## Career timeline

- **2016** — Received Zhejiang University’s Chu Kochen Scholarship.
- **2017** — Co-authored Deformable Convolutional Networks, an ICCV oral paper.
- **2019** — Co-authored a NeurIPS study of training batch sizes and a noisy quadratic model.
- **2021** — Instructed Introduction to Machine Learning at the University of Toronto.
- **2022** — Received an Apple PhD Fellowship.
- **2023** — Earned a Toronto computer science PhD and joined the founding team of xAI.
- **2026-02** — Described work across xAI’s coding and Imagine teams during its public all-hands presentation.
- **2026-03** — Announced his departure from xAI.

## Achievements

- Co-founded xAI in 2023.
- Co-authored a 2019 NeurIPS paper on batch size and neural network optimization.
- Co-authored Deformable Convolutional Networks, presented orally at ICCV 2017.
- Received an Apple PhD Fellowship in 2022 and a Borealis AI Fellowship in 2020.

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Announced his departure from xAI on X.
- **2026-02** — Appeared in xAI’s public all-hands discussion of Imagine and coding.

## Links

- Website: https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~gdzhang/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhang-guodong
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/Guodzh
- GitHub: https://github.com/gd-zhang

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