ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming launches Shanghai talent incubator in rare public appearance

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming on Friday made a rare public appearance in Shanghai to launch a talent incubator, as Washington and Beijing moved towards a deal for the popular short video platform TikTok to divest its US operations.

Zhang, 42, spoke at the launch of the Zhichun Innovation Centre, which he jointly established with Shanghai Jiao Tong University computer science professor Yu Yong in April, according to a statement from the centre.

The centre, which was founded with donations from Zhang, said in May that it aims to recruit 30 people aged between 16 and 18 annually, providing them with free training in areas including maths, physics, computer science and artificial intelligence.

Zhang’s attendance at the talent programme’s launch marked the billionaire entrepreneur’s first public appearance since 2021, when he donated 500 million yuan (US$70 million) to set up an education fund in his home city of Longyan, in eastern Fujian province, amid Beijing’s Big Tech crackdown.

One of China’s richest men, Zhang had a net worth of US$69.3 billion as of Friday, according to Forbes data.

Although he had been spending most of his time in Singapore, Zhang has denied speculation about obtaining Singaporean citizenship.