(Yicai) Feb. 21 -- Wu Yonghui, an artificial intelligence expert who spent nearly two decades at Google, is joining ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to explore basic AI research, a source familiar with the matter told Yicai today.

Wu, former vice president at Alphabet's AI research arm Google DeepMind, and Zhu Wenjia, head of ByteDance's AI business, are both in the Seed team, which focuses on developing industry-leading AI foundation models, the source said. Both report to Chief Executive Liang Rubo, though Zhu concentrates more on model application, the person added.

Rumors circulating online yesterday claimed that Wu would lead basic research at Seed, and several algorithm and technology leaders who previously reported to Zhu would now report to Wu. Wu allegedly joined ByteDance on Feb. 17.

ByteDance has not officially responded to the rumors.

Wu has spent most of his career at Google. He was promoted to vice president of research at Google DeepMind in September 2023. He is also a Google Fellow, a title reserved for distinguished senior technical employees. From 2014, he worked in Google Brain, the search engine company's deep learning research team.

Zhu joined ByteDance in 2015. In 2023, he led the creation of ByteDance's first large language model team. Previously, he served as global TikTok research and development chief and chief executive of Toutiao, ByteDance's news platform.

Editor: Emmi Laine