From a 17-year-old spearheading an AI company’s technical report to high school internships mentored by CEOs, China’s tech giants are increasingly trying to spot and cultivate talented teenagers.

In the most recent publicized example, on March 16, Chen Guangyu, a 17-year-old high school student, co-authored a technical report on large language models for Beijing-based Moonshot AI. The report, published on web-based software collaboration platform GitHub, was later praised by Tesla CEO Elon Musk as “impressive work” on X, sparking heated discussion on Chinese social media.

Chen reportedly joined Moonshot AI’s Kimi chatbot team as a machine learning intern last November and is expected to graduate in June from an international high school in southern China’s tech hub of Shenzhen, Guangdong province. The Kimi report listed three joint first authors: Chen and two established researchers in the field.

Earlier this month, tech giant Tencent announced a summer program recruiting middle and high school students for fintech and AI projects, with 10 participants selected after rounds of tests and interviews.

The program aims to “break the boundaries of age and experience” and help students “hammer their innovation skills into shape while solving real-world problems,” according to the recruitment post. 

The announcement drew criticism online, with some joking that companies might soon recruit “right outside delivery wards.”

On March 12, domestic auto giant Geely launched internship opportunities for students in their last year of high school, featuring mentorship by its affiliated tech CEOs.

At the program’s launch event, Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, said, “In the AI era, there exists a gap between the talent companies’ need and what universities currently supply.”

The trend dates back several years. In 2019, Tencent launched its annual “Spark Program,” selecting “high-potential” high school students for internships. That same year, telecommunications company Huawei unveiled its “Genius Youth” program, recruiting talent “regardless of academic credentials.” 

And last year, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming co-founded a nonprofit to employ 30 “full-time reserve researchers” aged 16 to 18 annually and train them in computer science and AI.

In an interview with domestic media, an anonymous AI company HR staffer said that “creativity” is increasingly valued for roles such as product managers, and that younger candidates may be more likely to imagine things that do not yet exist.

Globally, some tech leaders have also begun to question whether universities remain the best way to train talent. 

In 2025, data firm Palantir Technologies recruited 22 “high school graduates not enrolled in college” but who had achieved “Ivy League-level test scores” for paid internships, with top performers offered interviews for full-time roles, a pathway some dubbed the “Palantir degree.”

Last December, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, prompted debate after saying the tech company recruits “tons of people who don’t have bachelor’s degrees,” adding, “they just figure things out on their own in some weird corner.”

Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.

(Header image: VCG)