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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.
Josh Butler
Josh Butler is the founder and CEO of CompScience, a San Francisco AI company that turns ordinary workplace cameras into a real-time safety system. He was building perception software for self-driving cars when a family member was badly hurt on a construction site, and he redirected that same computer-vision technology toward stopping workplace injuries. Today CompScience detects more than 50 behavioral and environmental hazards on camera, bundles the analytics into a workers' compensation insurance product, and counts hundreds of enterprise customers across construction, manufacturing, warehousing and food service.
Seyond
Seyond (formerly Innovusion) is a Sunnyvale-based maker of image-grade LiDAR sensors and perception software for autonomous vehicles, ADAS, smart infrastructure, robotics and industrial applications. Best known as the long-range LiDAR supplier behind NIO's ET7, ET5 and ES7, the company has shipped more than 250,000 Falcon units and is pushing solid-state designs into mass production.
Lei Zhang
Lei Zhang is the CEO of CARIAD, Inc., Volkswagen Group's U.S. automotive software subsidiary based in Mountain View, California. A seasoned technology executive with 16+ years spanning Microsoft, Google, Huami, and NIO, Zhang now leads CARIAD's Interior, Infotainment & Digital Experience division globally. Known for pioneering NIO's NOMI digital assistant and championing software-defined vehicle innovation, he earned MotorTrend's Software-Defined Vehicle Innovator Award in 2023. His work sits at the intersection of Android OS expertise, AI-driven user experience, and the fast-evolving world of connected, electric mobility.