--- title: "Feature | Inside Silicon Valley’s AI Drama and the Eve of Gemini — Notes from Unique Research’s U.S. AI Study Tour" author: "Unique Research" sourcePublication: "Unique Research (FFCAP English library)" originalPublishedAt: "2024-01-03T14:50:00+08:00" canonical: "https://ffcap.cn/en/research/20240103a054sv00" source: "https://ffcap.cn/en/research/20240103a054sv00" language: "en" cnSourceUrl: "https://view.inews.qq.com/a/20240103A054SV00" --- # Feature | Inside Silicon Valley’s AI Drama and the Eve of Gemini — Notes from Unique Research’s U.S. AI Study Tour _Unique Research · Insight / study-tour dispatch · January 3, 2024 · Hosts: Unique Research lead Wu Wei (Delta) and the tour organizers · Contributors: Luo Hui (Yunxigu), Cheng Weizhong (Zhongke Shenzhi), Wang Ling (DREAM OASIS), Dr. Xue Chong (Quanzhentong)_ From **26 November to 5 December 2023**, Unique Research lead **Wu Wei** and the organizers took a cohort of China-based AI founders through Silicon Valley and New York. The ten-day itinerary mixed sessions with **NVIDIA**, **Meta**, and **Google**; founder conversations at U.S. startups **FlashIntel**, **Collov**, **Boding International**, and **Gloco**; campus visits to **Stanford**, **Princeton**, and **Rutgers** (whose AI/robotics labs rank among the U.S. top three per CN); and a closing discussion with McKinsey AI-application specialists on enterprise landing. The most colorful threads were insider chatter on the OpenAI leadership drama and stories from crypto circle veterans. For many participants it felt like a compressed “mini study-abroad”: each founder mapped frontier practice back to their own vertical and left charged by the density of U.S. AI activity. NVIDIA’s next **GTC** runs **18–21 March 2024**. Unique Capital plans a follow-on U.S. camp covering Seattle and the Bay Area, GTC attendance, and China–U.S. AI project roadshows in Silicon Valley. Interested founders may scan the CN QR for consults. ## Stanford visit & a founder-led market Domestic joke of the season: many founders no longer “to VC,” and many VCs no longer “to LP.” The U.S. trip underscored an AI investment market still driven by founders — and by conviction. Roughly **40% of U.S. VC dollars** sit in the Bay Area; without an AI narrative, fundraising is hard. Stanford innovation-circle members each pushing their own AI project rekindled mid-career founders’ appetite to build. Live WeChat shares kept remote friends in the loop; the notes below are what returned founders chose to publish. ## Luo Hui, CEO, Yunxigu Tech **1\. Campus and early-career founders everywhere.** Often 3–5 classmates or colleagues spin up a side project part-time — low burn. Microsoft and Google supply compute. Teams ship, get metrics or revenue, then raise. Vertical LLM bets span mental-health companions, virtual partners, support bots, marketing, AI tutors, smart home décor, and more. Dense app experimentation feeds foundation-model progress; China needs the same app layer for a healthy ecosystem. **2\. NVIDIA Q&A on cost/performance paths.** Luo floated four paths: (A) more/better data and leaner params for cheaper inference; (B) algorithm work that cuts GPU burn; (C) chip-architecture iteration; (D) process-node shrinks. NVIDIA engineers downplayed D: 7nm is “enough,” process cost share for GPUs is limited, and 2–3nm may raise cost without clear power wins. A/B/C all viable; NVIDIA leans on C — e.g. **GH200** near-memory (CPU/GPU shared memory) claiming ~**7×** performance. China SoC shops chase similar in-memory compute to break von Neumann “memory/power walls.” AI will remake chip architecture and OSes; PC/phone/embedded storage stacks and OS layers may see major change in 1–5 years. **3\. AGI in 1–3 years** was a common hallway view — after physical strength, general intelligence may also surpass humans. Prepare accordingly. Luo thanked Unique Capital for immersing the group in a leading AI environment. ## Cheng Weizhong, CEO, Zhongke Shenzhi **1\. GenAI remakes the startup template.** Small teams win: ship core algorithms yourself, rent the rest. Capital piles for user growth matter less early; young talent can try. **2\. Shorter fail cycles.** Ship fast, read feedback, quit in 2–3 months if needed, return to Big Tech — and share failure notes openly. **3\. China leads some GenAI niches** (e.g. digital humans, where quality bars are higher). Should those teams attack the U.S. market? ## Wang Ling, CEO, DREAM OASIS AI saturates every conversation — projects, LPs, even Web3 chats rebranded around GPT. Big-Tech ICs often R&D across 2–3 domains. Side projects of 3–5 people iterate in 2–3 months. Sharing culture and data-first salon talk feel more research-bottomed than China community BD talk. Valley founders run deep tech + talent/capital/compute; China founders often win on business-model clarity, cost control, and execution. Wang’s AI-startup notes: teams of 3–5 can reach meaningful scale; earliest wins may sit in to-professional / SMB efficiency and some large-B point tools; consumer UX still needs better audio-visual / persona fidelity before durable paid intent; large-B AI is slowed by process complexity and internal politics. ## Dr. Xue Chong, Founder & CEO, Quanzhentong ~10 AI founders on the trip. Xue argues LLM “hallucination” and forgetting are features for human-like behavior, not only bugs — his firm’s AI-assisted EMR already drafts notes and decision support for doctors. Company styles differ: Jensen Huang stays close to new NVIDIA projects; Meta’s campus feels like a free utopia with biweekly all-hands from Zuckerberg; Google staff seemed calm about GPT and confident in **Gemini**. Xue’s takeaway map: Meta stays open-source; OpenAI and Google monetize; NVIDIA stays ahead; China chip firms catch up. Chinese AI founders abroad often share U.S. elite-school pedigrees and early USD funding, pricing ~7–8× and R&D cost ~3–5× vs China peers at similar stage — a software analogue of early manufacturing export. Rutgers (founded 1882) PI sessions felt like pure research days at JHMI. Talent density in U.S. universities remains a core U.S. edge. ## Next camp preview — 10–18 March 2024 With GTC **18–21 March** (Huang keynote, 600+ sessions, 200+ exhibitors), Unique Capital’s next camp covers Seattle & Silicon Valley, GTC, a Valley investor roadshow for China founders, visits to Microsoft / Amazon / Google AI orgs, startup founder sessions, and top-university stops. _15 CN images (campus, GenAI meetup, NVIDIA, Meta, Google, Rutgers, McKinsey, Fisherman’s Wharf, Collov, FlashIntel, Boding, etc.); attach on ingest._ — END — --- Editorial English edition published on UniqueCapital: https://ffcap.cn/en/research/20240103a054sv00 On-site reading page: https://ffcap.cn/en/research/20240103a054sv00