China’s tech rally turns Pony AI founder into a billionaire
The Guangzhou-headquartered firm makes self-driving software and operates a fleet of 250 robotaxis in cities including Beijing and Shanghai
SELF-DRIVING entrepreneur James Peng has hit billionaire status after the rally in Chinese tech firms buoyed stock in his robotaxi startup Pony AI.
Shares in the Nasdaq-listed firm surged 23 per cent over the past two trading days, bringing its gain to 41 per cent since its November initial public offering (IPO). That lifted the value of Peng’s 17 per cent stake to US$1.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The rally was initiated by Chinese startup DeepSeek and its low-cost chatbot that has elevated China in the race for artificial intelligence (AI) supremacy and prompted investors to re-evaluate the nation’s tech companies. Chinese President Xi Jinping met on Monday (Feb 17) with Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma and other business leaders representing industries from chipmaking and electric vehicles to AI, signalling Beijing’s endorsement for the private sector.
Peng, a longtime stalwart of China’s AI industry, became interested in the sector in 2016 when Alphabet’s AlphaGo computer program defeated a champion player in the ancient Asian board game Go.
“I felt that artificial intelligence technology was beginning to mature,” Peng said. “I began to think that driving was a very boring and repetitive task, and whether AI could liberate humans.”
Later in 2016, Peng co-founded Pony AI with Tiancheng Lou, who is now the chief technology officer. The Guangzhou-headquartered firm makes self-driving software and operates a fleet of 250 robotaxis in cities including Beijing and Shanghai.
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Pony AI declined to comment on Peng’s wealth.
Their decision to list on the Nasdaq exchange late last year came after US President Donald Trump’s transition team said it wants to prioritise the creation of a federal framework for self-driving vehicles, Bloomberg has reported.
Geopolitical tensions
Still, Trump is expected to be tough on Chinese companies, particularly when there are cybersecurity or data-collection concerns.
The US has already unveiled regulations aimed at keeping advanced chips – a crucial component for autonomous vehicles – from making their way to China, and the Biden administration previously proposed a rule to block the import and sale of Chinese-made software and hardware for vehicles that can communicate externally.
“For us, it’s nothing new. We have dealt with this for quite some time already,” Peng said after the firm’s IPO in November, when asked about the potential export restrictions on chips. “We will try to have a more diversified supply chain to further de-risk from geopolitical tensions.”
The company will also focus its operations on international markets outside of the US, such as South Korea, Singapore and the Middle East, he said.
Pony AI employs more than 100 people in the US working on research, development and testing, according to regulatory filings. Its US revenue consistently remained below 1 per cent of the total in 2023 and the first half of 2024, and the company expects its American operations to remain limited in scope, with no plans for further expansion in the foreseeable future, the filings show.
Google, Baidu
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Beijing’s Tsinghua University, Peng went to the US to pursue a master’s degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a PhD from Stanford University.
He worked as a software engineer at Google between 2005 and 2011, specialising in advertising systems. He then worked as the chief architect at Baidu from 2011 to 2016, where he was in charge of research and development at the Beijing-based company’s autonomous driving unit, according to the prospectus.
His co-founder Lou is also an alumni of Tsinghua, Google and Baidu.
“I firmly believed that this technology could really create huge value for society,” Peng said. BLOOMBERG
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