One of the top AI and robotics experts in the US is about to join China’s talent roster
Artificial intelligence applied to robotics is changing the game at a breathtaking pace, and the moves made by the biggest names in the field say a lot about where this technology is headed.
One of those moves just caught the attention of the entire world.
On March 31, Fudan University in Shanghai published a list of 322 doctoral supervisors for the current year — and one name in particular made the tech world stop everything and pay attention.
Su Hao, widely regarded as one of the foremost global experts in AI for robotics, appears on the list as a professor in electronic information with a focus on artificial intelligence. Before showing up on that list, Su Hao was a tenured associate professor at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and founder and CTO of Hillbot, an AI robotics company.
This move didn’t come out of nowhere.
Since October of last year, rumors had been circulating that Su Hao was eyeing a return to China — but it was the Fudan list that brought the first real confirmation.
And the timing couldn’t be more strategic: the country is in the middle of an all-out race to develop and attract the world’s best AI talent, especially in the area of humanoid robots and embodied AI — the kind of artificial intelligence that gives robots the ability to perceive and physically interact with the environment around them.
But who exactly is this researcher, and why does his arrival at Fudan matter so much for the future of robotics? 🤖
Who is Su Hao and why the AI world is watching him closely
Su Hao isn’t exactly a newcomer in the world of artificial intelligence applied to robotics. He carries a rare academic pedigree: he holds two PhDs — one in applied mathematics from Beihang University in Beijing, and another in computer science from Stanford. This is the kind of profile that the world’s top universities and tech companies actively compete over — and that China has been working hard to bring back home in recent years.
On Google Scholar, his work on embodied AI has racked up over 145,000 citations, placing him among the most influential researchers on the planet in this field. We’re talking about someone whose publications have shaped a significant portion of what we know today about teaching machines to interact with the physical world.
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According to an interview he gave to AsiaTechDaily in October 2024, Su Hao’s fascination with artificial intelligence started early — in elementary school, to be precise, when he first came across minimum spanning tree algorithms.
It was the first time I felt that human intelligence might not be so unique after all — or rather, that it was something machines could replicate, he said in a tech podcast interview.
In 2002, Su enrolled at Beihang University to study mathematics. Three years later, in 2005, during an internship at Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), he had his first real exposure to artificial intelligence research — and never looked back.
Su Hao’s arrival at Fudan is, in many ways, the direct result of a deliberate talent recruitment strategy that the Chinese government has been executing with consistency. Fudan University isn’t just hiring a professor — it’s investing in an innovation pipeline that could last decades. 🚀
The years at Princeton, Stanford, and the project that changed computer vision
One of the most defining chapters in Su Hao’s career came in 2008, when he went to Princeton University in the United States as an exchange student. There, he served as a student leader and took part in a project that would become one of the landmark achievements in the history of artificial intelligence: ImageNet.
Led by Li Fei-Fei, who went on to become one of the most important figures in global AI, ImageNet is a massive image annotation dataset organized according to the semantic hierarchy of WordNet. Each visual concept comes with hundreds to thousands of real-world images associated with it. The project is widely considered one of the foundational pillars of the deep learning revolution, especially in the field of computer vision.
Su Hao himself put the magnitude of this breakthrough into perspective: Before ImageNet, people thought it would take 200 years to solve computer vision. We made incredible progress in just 10 years, he said in his AsiaTechDaily interview.
In 2009, Su Hao transferred from Princeton to Stanford, following Li Fei-Fei, to pursue his second PhD — this time in computer science. Even as a doctoral student, he was already recognized as a pioneer in 2D and 3D computer vision and in embodied AI. His academic reputation was so strong that in 2017, he secured a position as an assistant professor at UCSD before even formally completing his doctorate at Stanford — something quite uncommon in the academic world.
From academic researcher to builder of robotics platforms
But Su Hao didn’t stop at theoretical research. He quickly turned his focus to robotic AI, which has become one of the hottest topics within the embodied AI space.
In 2020, his team launched SAPIEN, the world’s first simulation engine capable of modeling interactions between robots and humans in virtual environments. This kind of tool is critical for developing intelligent robots because it allows algorithms to be trained and tested in simulated scenarios before being deployed in the real world — saving time, money, and reducing risk.
The following year, in 2021, Su Hao organized the ManiSkill competition, built on the SAPIEN platform. The event helped establish evaluation standards for embodied AI systems, creating benchmarks that the international community adopted as references for measuring robot performance in object manipulation tasks.
In July 2025, Su co-founded Hillbot, an AI robotics company, taking on the role of CTO. Hillbot’s focus is on industrial applications — such as automotive manufacturing, warehouse logistics, and retail — areas where intelligent automation has the potential to drive significant efficiency gains in the coming years.
On top of all that, Su Hao served as program chair of the CVPR 2025 conference (Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition), one of the most prestigious events in the world for computer vision. Last year, he received the CVPR Young Researcher Award and a Frontiers of Science Award, the latter presented in China — two honors that reinforce his standing among the most influential researchers working today.
China’s race for talent in AI and humanoid robotics
To understand the significance of Su Hao’s move to Fudan University, you need to look at the bigger picture. For several years now, China has been making one of the most ambitious national bets on artificial intelligence and robotics the world has ever seen. The central government has set clear goals to make the country the global leader in AI by 2030, and the resources devoted to this race are substantial — whether in research funding, in the creation of technology parks, or in programs designed to attract Chinese talent who built their careers abroad. That’s the context in which Su Hao’s arrival needs to be read: it’s not an isolated event but part of a well-orchestrated strategy.
The humanoid space has received particular attention within this strategy. Companies like Unitree Robotics, UBTECH, and numerous other Chinese startups are locked in fierce competition to develop bipedal robots capable of performing complex tasks in the real world — from factories to hospitals, from logistics warehouses to homes. The big bottleneck, as anyone who follows the sector knows, isn’t the hardware. Motors, actuators, and mechanical structures have come a long way. The real challenge lies in the artificial intelligence layer that enables a robot to perceive, reason, and act reliably in situations it has never encountered before. This is exactly where researchers like Su Hao make a difference — and it’s why top universities are fighting over them.
When Fudan University publishes a list of doctoral supervisors and Su Hao’s name appears on it, the signal the market receives is clear: the institution is positioning itself as a leading hub for AI robotics research in the country. That attracts more researchers, more funding, and more industry partnerships — creating a virtuous cycle that can significantly accelerate the development of technologies that are still in the prototype stage today but could be manufactured at scale within a few years. 🤖
What this kind of move means for the future of robotics
Moves like Su Hao’s shift to Fudan University tend to have consequences that go well beyond the immediate headlines. In the short term, the most visible effect is the strengthening of the institution’s research group and its increased ability to attract top-tier students interested in working on artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics. But in the medium and long term, the impact can run much deeper.
Research developed within well-structured university environments tends to generate relevant intellectual property, publications that shape the global conversation, and eventually spin-offs and startups that bring those ideas to market. The history of technology is full of examples of breakthroughs that started in university labs and transformed entire industries — and Su Hao himself is proof of this, having co-founded Hillbot from his academic research.
In the specific case of humanoids, academic research plays a role that goes beyond pure technological innovation. There are questions about safety, human-robot interaction, ethics in the use of autonomous systems, and interface design that need to be rigorously investigated before these robots are deployed at scale. Researchers with solid experience, like Su Hao, bring not only technical knowledge but also the ability to guide students in thinking about these problems in a multidimensional way — which is essential for the technology to advance responsibly and sustainably.
Fudan University has gained, with this hire, someone who can help put these questions at the center of the academic conversation in China.
The geopolitical impact of AI talent migration
You can’t talk about Su Hao’s move without addressing the geopolitical dimension of this kind of shift. The rivalry between the United States and China for leadership in artificial intelligence is one of the central axes of global tech competition today. And in this rivalry, talent is the scarcest and most strategic resource of all.
When a researcher with over 145,000 citations, experience at two of the best American universities, and a track record of creating platforms adopted worldwide decides to move to a Chinese university, it doesn’t go unnoticed. It’s a reminder that the competition for human capital in AI can’t be won simply with high salaries or well-equipped labs — it involves research opportunities, institutional support, academic freedom, and the perception of where the most promising future lies.
For anyone who follows the artificial intelligence and robotics space, this kind of move serves as a barometer of the global innovation ecosystem. When top-tier researchers choose certain institutions or regions, they are, in a sense, placing a bet on that ecosystem’s potential. Su Hao’s decision to join Fudan — instead of staying at an American university or focusing exclusively on Hillbot — says something about where he sees the most compelling opportunities right now. And given his track record, it’s hard to ignore that signal. 💡
What we can take away from all of this
Su Hao’s move to Fudan University leaves a few clear takeaways for anyone watching the future of artificial intelligence and robotics.
The first is that human capital remains the most contested and most valuable resource in this technology race — far more than hardware or computing infrastructure. Countries and institutions that manage to attract and retain top-tier researchers build lasting competitive advantages that are much harder to replicate than any specific product or platform. China understood this early and has been executing on this strategy with consistency.
The second takeaway is about the role of universities in this ecosystem. At a time when big tech companies dominate much of the AI narrative, it’s tempting to underestimate the importance of academic institutions. But they are the ones training researchers, producing foundational knowledge, and creating the environment needed for long-term ideas — often without immediate returns — to be explored in depth. Fudan University is reaffirming that role with moves like this, and it deserves the attention of anyone who wants to understand where technology is headed.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the humanoid space still has a long way to go before it delivers on everything it promises. The technical challenges are real, costs are still high, and commercial applications at scale are only just beginning to take shape. But every time a researcher of Su Hao’s caliber enters the arena, the distance between what’s possible today and what will be possible tomorrow gets a little smaller.
And that’s what makes this kind of news so much more than a simple career change — it’s a sign that the future of robotics is being built, brick by brick, in the labs and classrooms of universities that are going all in on this technology. 🤖✨
