MiHoYo Founder Cai Haoyu’s New AI Startup Exposed After “Controversial” Online Post
AIGC has already revolutionized game development… most practitioners should consider changing careers.
The new company, named Anuttacon, aims to create unprecedented experiences for gamers using AI, pushing the boundaries of interactive entertainment.
What links this company to MiHoYo and Cai Haoyu?
Key Clue 1: Registration Location
Netizens with keen eyes noticed that Anuttacon is registered at the same address as MiHoYo’s Singapore headquarters, Hoyoverse.
Key Clue 2: Key Personnel
Ray Wang, who serves as President of User Ecology at Anuttacon, is the former head of gaming and live streaming at Bilibili, Wang Yuyang. After leaving Bilibili, he attended public events under his Hoyoverse affiliation and previously used a MiHoYo corporate email (now replaced with a personal one).
Key Clue 3: Office Location
Anuttacon’s job postings indicate primary recruitment in the San Francisco Bay Area, but it maintains an office in Santa Clara. Cai Haoyu’s LinkedIn profile also lists his most recent location as Santa Clara.
The recent attention Anuttacon has garnered in the industry, connecting these dots, was triggered by two events:
Trigger 1: Microsoft graphics expert Tong Xin joined Anuttacon as Partner Research Manager.
Trigger 2: The usually low-profile MiHoYo founder Cai Haoyu made a rare public statement, using AI to advise game industry professionals against staying in their current roles.
In Cai’s view, the AI era will lead to polarization in the gaming industry: only top-tier works from elite teams or games produced by individuals themselves will survive.
Professionals in the middle tier—whether experts or amateurs, including himself—are advised to consider changing careers…
Cai Haoyu Dives into AI; Large Model Head in Place
Before Cai Haoyu stepped down as chairman in September 2023, MiHoYo had already shown interest in large language models.
In fact, even before the release of ChatGPT, it invested in Minimax, one of the “Six Little Dragons” of the current large model sector.
There have also been frequent reports that after stepping down from his domestic roles at MiHoYo, Cai has focused more on AI research.
Although Anuttacon has not yet announced any specific products or projects, emphasizing only its belief in “the potential of AI to create new entertainment experiences,” the known team members offer some clues.
Currently, Anuttacon’s size is listed as 11-50 employees, with five verifiable members:
Technical Heavyweight: Computer Graphics Expert Tong Xin
Known in the industry as “Tong Lao,” he has recently left Microsoft after a 25-year tenure at Microsoft Research Asia. This marks his first job change since graduating with his PhD and joining Microsoft.
At Microsoft, Tong Xin served as a Research Partner and Head of the Networking Group. He has published over 150 papers in top computer graphics and computer vision conferences and journals, with citations exceeding 15,000 and an h-index of 66.
He continues to serve as Partner Research Manager at Anuttacon.
Suspected Heads of Large Model Research Appear
Wu Xiaojian, an alumnus of Wuhan University, holds a CS PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He previously served as a Senior Research Scientist at Microsoft and Meta.
He participated in research on the open-source Llama 3.1 series, with papers covering multilingual capabilities, post-training, RLHF, RAG, Agents, and more, making him a versatile researcher in large models.
He serves as Founding Engineer and Head of the Large Model Research Team at Anuttacon.
Yunzhe Tao, whose LinkedIn profile shows he joined a “hidden startup” just a month ago, appears in search results for Anuttacon alongside Tong Xin and Wu Xiaojian.
Tao completed his undergraduate studies in Applied Mathematics at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and earned his PhD in Applied Mathematics and Data Science from Columbia University.
After graduation, he worked as an Applied Scientist in Amazon’s reinforcement learning team. He later served as a Senior Research Scientist and Technical Lead at ByteDance’s Seattle R&D Center, responsible for post-training work on code generation large models.
Regarding his new role, Tao only revealed that he is working on “large model applications.”
Veteran of Internet Infrastructure: MiHoYo’s Ye Lileng
Ye Lileng has not publicly disclosed his specific role at Anuttacon. However, according to his Maimai profile, he has nearly 10 years of experience at UCloud, a cloud computing listed company, where he served as Head of the Private Cloud and Container Product Line.
A graduate of Shantou University, Ye joined UCloud in 2012 and MiHoYo in 2021, focusing on distributed computing and infrastructure.
Veteran in Esports and Live Streaming: Former Bilibili Live Head Wang Yuyang
Beyond the technical team, Wang Yuyang is the only other known executive at Anuttacon.
Before joining Bilibili, Wang worked at Huya Live and Penguin Esports. He later founded the esports MCN agency Da’e Culture. After Xiaoxiang Interactive merged with Da’e Culture, he joined Bilibili.
At Bilibili, he served as General Manager of the Gaming Content Department & Live Streaming Center, and later became a Vice President and the youngest post-90s executive, focusing on live streaming operations.
Wang left Bilibili at the end of 2023, around the time Anuttacon was registered in Singapore.
In May this year, he posted job openings on Maimai for “Senior AI Product Operations” and “Senior AI Product Manager,” with work locations including Singapore.
At Anuttacon, he holds the title of President of User Ecology.
MiHoYo Handles the Remaining 99% of Content
With this team in mind, looking back at Cai Haoyu’s statement, Anuttacon represents what he calls the “top 0.0001%.”
The most insightful geniuses, possessing deep understanding and exceptional design skills, form elite teams to create unprecedented things.
In the comments section, figures from the AI and gaming industries engaged in discussion.
Song Yachen, founder of VAS (an AI 3D content generation company), added that Cai’s “top 0.0001%” is akin to Hollywood blockbusters, while the 99% resembles TikTok, where anyone can now make videos.
Thus, the task of serving the other 99%—a “platform where anyone can make games”—might fall to MiHoYo.
There were already signs that MiHoYo had begun preparations in this direction.
Earlier this year, MiHoYo posted job openings related to Genshin Impact UGC (User Generated Content), explicitly stating in the announcement that “content created by participants will be a module of equal importance to the main body of Genshin Impact.”
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