# Yan Junjie

> Yan Junjie is the founder, chairman, CEO and CTO of Shanghai-based MiniMax. Trained in mathematics and AI, and formerly a vice president at SenseTime, he founded MiniMax in late 2021 to develop multimodal models alongside consumer products. The company listed in Hong Kong in January 2026 and reported $116.6 million in revenue for the first half of 2026.

- **Role:** Founder, chairman, CEO and CTO at MiniMax
- **Organizations:** MiniMax, SenseTime, Tsinghua University, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences
- **From:** Xiayi County, Shangqiu, China
- **Nationality:** Chinese
- **Education:** Bachelor of Mathematics, Southeast University, Doctorate in artificial intelligence, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Postdoctoral research, Tsinghua University
- **Known for:** Published approximately 200 academic papers, with more than 30,000 citations, according to MiniMax’s corporate biography., Received two Wu Wenjun Artificial Intelligence awards in 2019 and a Guangdong Province Technology Invention first prize in 2020., Led MiniMax’s development of text, speech and visual models and products including Hailuo AI.

## Career timeline

- **2010** — Earned a mathematics bachelor’s degree from Southeast University.
- **2015** — Completed an AI doctorate at the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences; later conducted postdoctoral research at Tsinghua University.
- **2015–2021** — Worked at SenseTime for more than six years, rising to vice president and vice-head of its research institute.
- **2021** — Founded MiniMax in Shanghai late in the year.
- **2022** — MiniMax released its first text model and launched Glow, an AI character chat product.
- **2024** — MiniMax launched Hailuo AI and Yan appeared at 36Kr WAVES, his first offline summit appearance.
- **2025** — Delivered the “Everyone’s AI” keynote at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai.
- **2026** — MiniMax listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 9.

## Achievements

- Published approximately 200 academic papers, with more than 30,000 citations, according to MiniMax’s corporate biography.
- Received two Wu Wenjun Artificial Intelligence awards in 2019 and a Guangdong Province Technology Invention first prize in 2020.
- Led MiniMax’s development of text, speech and visual models and products including Hailuo AI.
- Led MiniMax through its January 2026 Hong Kong listing.

## Latest updates

- **2026-08** — MiniMax reported first-half 2026 revenue of US$116.6 million and adjusted net loss of US$293.0 million; Yan emphasized lower-cost intelligence as a long-term priority.
- **2026-01** — MiniMax listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 9.

## Links

- Website: https://www.minimax.io/

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