# Steve Xie

> Steve Xie is the founder and CEO of Lightwheel, a physical AI infrastructure company building simulation and synthetic data systems that teach robots to learn and operate in the real world. A physicist by training with a Columbia PhD, he led autonomous driving simulation at Cruise, NVIDIA, and NIO before starting Lightwheel in 2023. The company supplies SimReady 3D assets, egocentric human data, and robot evaluation tools to labs including NVIDIA, Google DeepMind, and Figure, and raised roughly $137.5 million in 2026 to expand its data and evaluation infrastructure.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Lightwheel
- **Organizations:** Lightwheel, Cruise, NVIDIA, NIO, Wagtail
- **Education:** B.S. in Physics, Peking University, Ph.D. (Decision, Risk and Operations / Quantitative Finance), Columbia Business School, Columbia University
- **Known for:** Founded Lightwheel, described as an early leader in embodied-AI simulation and data infrastructure, Led or built autonomous-driving simulation programs at three major companies: Cruise, NVIDIA, and NIO, Grew Lightwheel to serve leading AI labs and manufacturers including NVIDIA, Google DeepMind, Figure, Toyota, and Bosch

## Career timeline

- **2018-2021** — Group Product Manager of Simulation at Cruise, working on autonomous driving simulation during its scaling phase
- **2021** — Principal / Senior Product Manager for Autonomous Vehicles at NVIDIA, working around the Omniverse and Isaac ecosystem
- **2021-2023** — Senior Director and Head of Simulation at NIO, building simulation infrastructure for driver-assist systems
- **2023** — Founded Lightwheel in February to build the data infrastructure layer for physical AI
- **2026** — Lightwheel closed a strategic funding round of roughly $137.5 million (about 1 billion yuan) to expand its physical AI data and evaluation infrastructure

## Achievements

- Founded Lightwheel, described as an early leader in embodied-AI simulation and data infrastructure
- Led or built autonomous-driving simulation programs at three major companies: Cruise, NVIDIA, and NIO
- Grew Lightwheel to serve leading AI labs and manufacturers including NVIDIA, Google DeepMind, Figure, Toyota, and Bosch
- Raised approximately $137.5 million (about 1 billion yuan) in a 2026 strategic round backed by government-linked and corporate investors
- Holds multiple patents related to autonomous vehicles, including map updates and routing

## Latest updates

- **2026-06** — Lightwheel closed a strategic funding round of roughly $137.5 million (about 1 billion yuan) to expand physical AI data and evaluation infrastructure.
- **2026-04** — Xie appeared on The Ravit Show discussing why robotics AI is hitting a data wall and how simulation can break it.

## Links

- Website: https://lightwheel.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevexiecbs/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/bgxc

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/steve-xie
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-24