HXE (Huixiaoer) is a Beijing-based MICE technology platform that lets companies search, compare and book hotel conference rooms, meeting venues and event services online. Marketed globally as Eventbest, it aggregates 150,000+ hotels and event venues, has served more than 400,000 corporate clients, and partners with major hotel groups including Marriott, Hilton, IHG, Shangri-La, Wyndham and Langham. HXE turns a traditionally offline, quote-by-phone procurement process - meetings, conferences, incentive trips and group business travel - into a one-stop digital marketplace covering venue data, price comparison, catering, accommodation and logistics.
Spacesforce (Chinese: 空间原力) is a Chengdu-based SaaS and IoT company building a data-intelligence platform for commercial real estate. Its cloud software connects leasing operations, project management and asset management so that landlords, office-building operators and coworking brands can run their space digitally rather than on spreadsheets. Founded in 2018 by Columbia-trained Donglai Du and NYU-trained Mike Zhang, the company helps traditional developers modernize how they track occupancy, tenants and building performance.
Kevin (Shengxin) Diao is the co-founder and CEO of Meixin (MX) Global, a New York-based cross-border fintech and investment management company he started in 2015 at age 26. The firm builds technology that gives Asian wealth managers, private funds and family offices access to global alternative investments, aggregating investor subscriptions to lower minimums and costs. A graduate of NYU's Stern School of Business, Diao previously worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Greentech Capital Advisors and Societe Generale. He was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list for Finance & Venture Capital in 2017 and to Tatler Asia's Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow list in 2019.
Inceptio Technology is a developer of full-stack autonomous driving systems for heavy-duty trucks, headquartered in Shanghai with an R&D center in Fremont/Santa Clara, California. Founded in 2018 by Julian Ma, it works with truck OEMs to mass-produce Level 3 highway-capable trucks and operates one of the largest real-world autonomous freight fleets in the world. Its proprietary XUANYUAN and T-NOA systems power more than 4,000 trucks that have logged over 400 million kilometers of commercial operation for customers including JD Logistics, Nestle, Budweiser and Deppon Express, as it charts a data-driven roadmap toward scalable Level 4 autonomy.
Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei sits for a wide-ranging interview at what the host calls the center of the AI universe. He describes the felt experience of running the fastest-growing company in the industry as a 'smooth exponential' that feels like accelerating away from Earth at relativistic speed. Amodei explains why Anthropic bet on enterprise and coding over splashy consumer apps, recounts why he left OpenAI (a loss of trust, not merely a safety disagreement), and defends the company's controversial choices: working with the Department of Defense while drawing red lines against mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, warning about entry-level white-collar job loss, and holding back Mythos, a cyber model so capable that early testers called it a 'super weapon.' Throughout he returns to a single thesis: respond to AI's accelerating power rationally and steadily, never 'yo-yoing' between complacency and panic.
Yi Wang is the co-founder and CEO of Liulishuo (LingoChamp / LAIX), the Shanghai-based company that built one of the world's first AI-powered English teachers. A Princeton PhD and ex-Google product manager, he returned to China in 2011 and shipped an app that climbed to the top of China's App Store within months, eventually serving tens of millions of learners and taking the company public on the NYSE in 2018.
Cindy Mi is the founder and CEO of VIPKid, a Beijing-based edtech unicorn that connects Chinese children aged 4-12 with North American English teachers through live one-on-one video lessons. A high-school dropout turned billionaire builder, she started tutoring English peers at age 15, co-founded an English academy chain at 17, and by 2020 had grown VIPKid to over 800,000 students, 100,000 teachers, and a $4 billion-plus valuation - backed by Tencent, Sequoia, and the late Kobe Bryant.

Kurt Beidler is the Chief Executive Officer of Quizlet, the AI-powered learning platform used by hundreds of millions of students worldwide. Appointed in July 2024, he brings 17 years of Amazon experience scaling subscription businesses - most notably growing Amazon Kids+ into the world's largest youth-focused subscription service and launching Kindle into China. Under his leadership, Quizlet has grown revenue to $139M annually while aggressively integrating AI tools including a native ChatGPT app integration, lecture recording features, and an OpenAI partnership aimed at keeping students' entire study workflow on one platform.
Liam Casey is the Irish founder and CEO of PCH International, the supply chain orchestration company he named after California's Pacific Coast Highway. Built from a Cork dairy farm upbringing and a decade in European fashion, PCH became a billion-dollar operation linking Silicon Valley's most ambitious hardware companies to a network of over 1,200 Chinese factories. Known as 'Mr China' in tech circles, Casey is renowned for carrying three phones, living out of hotels across two continents per week, and never once learning Mandarin — a deliberate vulnerability he credits for building deeper factory relationships than any fluent speaker could.
Eric Rosenblum is a General Partner at Xora Innovation, a Temasek-backed early-stage venture firm investing in AI infrastructure, applied AI, and deep tech. Based in Silicon Valley, he is the firm's first US-based GP, bridging Southeast Asian capital with American innovation. Before Xora, he built Foothill Ventures into a leading deep-tech seed fund and spent his career as an operator at Google, Palantir, and as founder/executive at two acquired startups. A Harvard and MIT Sloan graduate raised in Steubenville, Ohio, he brings a rare combination of big-tech product leadership, China market experience, and hands-on startup scaling to his role as investor.
David Lu is the co-founder and CEO of Clarity Movement Co., a Berkeley-based climate tech company that deploys hyperlocal air quality monitoring networks across 85+ countries. Growing up in smog-choked Shanghai and arriving to California's startling blue skies as a teenager, he turned personal contrast into a global mission. Clarity's tissue-box-sized solar-powered sensors have recorded over 500 million measurements, informed London's low-emission zones, and earned Lu a spot on TIME's 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025.

Hans Tung is a Managing Partner at Notable Capital (formerly GGV Capital), one of the most decorated venture capitalists in the world with 13 consecutive appearances on the Forbes Midas List - peaking at #3 globally. A Taiwanese immigrant who moved to Los Angeles at 13, Stanford-trained, and one of the first Silicon Valley VCs to relocate full-time to China in 2005, Hans has backed over 16 unicorns including Airbnb, Coinbase, Slack, ByteDance, Xiaomi, and Anthropic across three decades and three waves of technology: internet, mobile/cloud, and now AI.

The Smart #1 is a battery-electric subcompact crossover SUV that marks the complete reinvention of the Smart brand. Developed as the first product of a 50:50 joint venture between Mercedes-Benz Group and Geely Holding, it swaps the iconic two-seater city car formula for a five-door family crossover built on Geely's SEA2 electric platform. With Mercedes designing the exterior and interior, and Geely handling engineering and production in China, the #1 delivers up to 440 km of WLTP range, a 12.8-inch touchscreen with AI voice assistant, and a 0-62 mph time as low as 3.9 seconds in the Brabus variant.

The BYD Atto 3 is a battery electric compact crossover SUV manufactured by BYD Auto, the world's largest electric vehicle company. Launched in China as the Yuan Plus in February 2022 and rolled out globally as the Atto 3, it features BYD's proprietary LFP Blade Battery, a gym-inspired interior designed by former Audi and Alfa Romeo design boss Wolfgang Egger, and has sold over one million units worldwide.

Gilman Louie is a fourth-generation Chinese-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and national security strategist who built the CIA's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel from scratch, co-founded Alsop Louie Partners, and now leads America's Frontier Fund — a nonprofit deep-tech investment vehicle aimed at securing U.S. technological leadership against China. Before any of that, he was the video game pioneer who brought Tetris to the West and built the Falcon F-16 flight simulator so realistic it trained actual Air National Guard pilots.

Adam Tooze is the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History at Columbia University, Director of the European Institute, and one of the most widely-read public intellectuals in economics and geopolitics. His newsletter Chartbook on Substack has over 181,000 subscribers and his books - including The Wages of Destruction, Crashed, and Shutdown - have reshaped how historians, economists, and policymakers understand financial crises, the Nazi economy, and global disorder. He popularized the term 'polycrisis' and co-hosts the Foreign Policy podcast Ones and Tooze. Known for his extraordinary output, analytical range, and willingness to publicly revise his views, Tooze is that rare figure who straddles academic history and live economic commentary with equal authority.

Jordan Schneider is the founder and editor-in-chief of ChinaTalk, the premier independent newsletter and podcast covering US-China tech and policy. A Yale-educated historian who earned a master's in economics from Peking University's Yenching Academy, Schneider has built ChinaTalk into a 65,000-subscriber powerhouse with over 1 million podcast downloads in 2025 alone. He is an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and a former 2023-24 AWM Scholar, with bylines in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Wired, and Lawfare. Based in New York and fluent in Chinese, Schneider synthesizes elite policy analysis with accessible storytelling, covering semiconductors, AI development, export controls, and the full sweep of US-China competition.