Organized by New York College, the Second China–US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competitors concluded efficiently on November 22 at Vanderbilt Corridor of the NYU College of Regulation. The occasion introduced collectively founders and funding establishments from each China and the USA, attracting an viewers of over 300 attendees. The competitors goals to deepen bilateral trade in technological innovation and early-stage entrepreneurship, additional integrating the 2 ecosystems throughout expertise, expertise, and capital.
This 12 months’s competitors embraced the theme of “Openness, Innovation, and Connection,” specializing in synthetic intelligence, large-model purposes, cross-border expertise companies, and enterprise options. In response to the organizers, China and the USA every maintain distinctive benefits in AI and the broader startup ecosystem. The competitors serves as a platform for younger entrepreneurs to transcend geographic boundaries, showcase innovation, and construct cross-cultural entrepreneurial cooperation.
A transparent development emerged amongst this 12 months’s submissions: AI applied sciences accelerating their integration into vertical trade situations. Among the many eight finalists, a number of groups offered options making use of AI to multimedia advertising, new-energy expertise, gaming, and healthcare.
To realize deeper perception into the core challenges and alternatives dealing with AI founders, we interviewed considered one of this 12 months’s judges, Chenxi Huang (Chelsey), a outstanding quantitative investor and entrepreneurship mentor. Having based a number of startups herself, Chelsey approaches early-stage corporations with greater than an investor’s lens. She has constructed merchandise and groups from scratch, navigated market validation, business-model choice, and the constraints of restricted early sources. These consecutive entrepreneurial experiences allow her to guage AI tasks with structured readability—differentiating between conceptual narratives and alternatives with actual business pathways, and assessing founders’ decision-making by means of the lens of execution tempo and trade timing.
“The actual moat is foresight, not IQ.”
Host: In your view, what’s a very powerful high quality of an distinctive AI founder?
Chenxi H.: I imagine essentially the most important functionality of a founder just isn’t IQ, however foresight. It’s essential to act one or two steps forward of the market.
In the event you merely comply with developments, you’ll at all times be chasing the tail finish of a wave, and by the point the wave arrives, you’ve already missed it. An actual founder must see trade shifts earlier than they materialize—and have the braveness to validate early.
Everybody right now is saying AI is straightforward to construct, that you may fine-tune a mannequin and get one thing working. I really suppose the alternative: as technical obstacles fall, strategic judgment turns into considerably extra necessary. Fashions may be replicated, parameters may be copied, however foresight can’t.
“Workforce alignment beats crew dimension.”
Host: Past foresight and strategic judgment, how necessary is team-building for early-stage founders?
Chenxi H.: I additionally deeply really feel the significance of the crew. Entrepreneurship just isn’t about one particular person grinding alone—it’s about whether or not you possibly can encourage others to comply with your conviction. Within the early stage, what issues most just isn’t the dimensions of the crew, however alignment and rhythm. A crew operating in the identical route, making choices collectively, usually outperforms a single technical breakthrough.
Ladies Founders in Silicon Valley: Competing within the Similar Area
Host: How do you view the scenario of ladies founders in Silicon Valley’s innovation ecosystem?
Chenxi H.: To be trustworthy, whereas the U.S. tech trade is open on the technical entrance, inside the founder ecosystem, girls do want extra time to construct confidence and presence. Entrepreneurship is a particularly aggressive sport; it doesn’t decelerate or soften simply because you’re a girl.
That’s why I imagine girls founders should have the identical stage of ambition as males—if no more. You can not place your self as a “feminine founder”; you have to place your self as a founder, competing with the strongest gamers available in the market. Your sense of route, your pace, and your execution rhythm all must benchmark towards the most effective.
I usually name this the “aggressive logic of the world.” Capital, markets, and timing home windows is not going to look forward to you. Breakthroughs don’t come from gender—they arrive from whether or not you can also make earlier, sooner, and sharper choices at important moments.
Technical Traits: Open-Supply Acceleration and 2026 because the Inflection Level for Trade-Particular Mannequin Specialization
Host: Based mostly on the AI tasks you’ve noticed, what technical developments stand out this 12 months?
Chenxi H.: Wanting on the broader development, I’ve observed that many groups this 12 months are utilizing open-source giant fashions because the core of their underlying tech stack—and this displays a serious shift. China’s fashions have superior quickly prior to now two years; programs like Qwen and DeepSeek are enabling founders worldwide. For early-stage groups, decrease prices and shorter experimentation cycles imply you possibly can attain actual product-market match sooner.
I describe the present section as: “sources are accessible; execution is the differentiator.”
In different phrases, expertise is now not the scarcest useful resource. Judgment and execution are. Those that determine actual situations, actual ache factors, and actual monetizable workflows would be the ones who get away on this cycle.
I imagine 2026 can be a pivotal 12 months when AI purposes enter full-scale trade deployment. Founders in each China and the USA can be driving the identical wave—competing and collaborating—and the following era of tech corporations can be formed on this window.
Because the interview concluded, the technical route and entrepreneurial spirit demonstrated all through the competitors turned even clearer. With the profitable closing of the Second China–US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competitors, the organizers reaffirmed their dedication to fostering ongoing trade between founders from each international locations in AI, expertise, and innovation. This 12 months’s occasion showcased not solely the creativity and execution of younger entrepreneurs from China and the U.S., but additionally underscored an necessary fact: the way forward for AI belongs not simply to expertise itself, however to founders with foresight, alignment, and the braveness to construct throughout cultures.
