Tsinghua University students in their 20s are attracting hundreds of millions of dollars for AI startups, with some launching companies while still pursuing doctorates.

Among the most prominent is Liu Songming, who founded physical AI startup LiberAI in late 2025 while pursuing a doctorate at Tsinghua. Liu was 23 when he started the company.

LiberAI, which is developing technology for robotics, autonomous driving and industrial simulation, has since completed six funding rounds in 10 months, raising more than 1 billion yuan (US$149 million), according to Chinese newspaper Securities Times. Liu had graduated at the top of his Tsinghua computer science class and won the university's highest student scholarship. His research focused on embodied AI, which seeks to enable machines to understand and interact with the physical world.

Liu is part of a broader wave of young Tsinghua researchers turning academic work into companies. Chinese technology news outlet 36Kr recently highlighted several Tsinghua entrepreneurs born after 2000 who have attracted major venture investment, some while still studying.

Among them is Qin Shentao, 25, a doctoral student at Tsinghua's School of Vehicle and Mobility who founded physical AI company OriginFlow in 2025. The company has raised more than 500 million yuan. OriginFlow is developing a neuromuscular wristband that detects a person's intention to move, generating real‑world data that can be used to train robots.

Hu Yucheng, also 25 and a Tsinghua doctoral student, founded embodied AI startup LatentVerse in May after conducting foundation‑model research with ByteDance's Seed team. Less than three months later, LatentVerse raised hundreds of millions of yuan in seed funding from investors including GL Ventures and robotics companies AgiBot and Robot Era. Hu's research focuses on helping robots predict how the physical world will change in response to their actions.

A breeding ground for AI founders

Tsinghua, ranked first in Asia and 11th globally in the 2027 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, has a long record of producing technology entrepreneurs.

More than 1,000 companies have been founded by Tsinghua alumni, including over a dozen unicorns, Business Insider reported in April, citing market intelligence platform Tracxn. The university also pushes students into research early. Many computer science students join laboratories and work on academic papers while still studying, with some undergraduates publishing research at leading computer science conferences.

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