Kai-fu Lee, chairman and chief executive of Sinovation Ventures, a prominent Chinese venture capital firm, announced on Sunday that he will set up a new artificial intelligence company called Project AI 2.0 to compete with OpenAI.

The prominent investor said in his WeChat moment that capital and computing power are gradually aligning toward Project AI 2.0, adding that hiring for top talent in areas such as large language models, multimodal natural language processing, AI engineering and research, distributed computing and infrastructure has also begun.

Project AI 2.0 doesn't just aim to become a Chinese equivalent of OpenAI's ChatGPT, but also hopes to lead the transformation of the AI industry, Lee said.

According to Yicai Global, several technical managers who have experience in leading large teams at global companies have confirmed their intention to join Lee's new venture.

Founded in 2009 in Beijing, Sinovation Ventures focuses on investing in early-stage startups in the technology sector, with a particular emphasis on companies that are leveraging artificial intelligence, robotics, and other cutting-edge technologies. Sinovation Ventures has also established a presence in Silicon Valley, where it has an office in California.

Lee himself is a prominent figure in the AI sector, with more than 30 years of experience in the field. He is a former Google China president and has also held leadership roles at Microsoft, Apple, and Silicon Graphics.