Over the last month, Meta has frequently made headlines for its relentless recruitment efforts aimed at building superintelligent AI. The company has poached a long list of employees from its competitor, OpenAI, a company Mark Zuckerberg would love to catch up to.
Beyond the notable overlap in the roles and expertise of those recently hired by Meta, a common factor is that many of them have Chinese origins.
But why? Or, rather, how?
As an Indian, there’s a familiar cultural ripple effect that spreads through family WhatsApp groups whenever someone of Indian origin is appointed CEO of a major US company.
At times, it is also accompanied by the subtle—and sometimes not-so-subtle—pressure to follow suit.
The country’s deep-rooted obsession with engineering, the aspiration to pursue foreign education, and strong work ethic values shaped by a rigorous and systematic educational system are often cited as factors behind the rise of the Indian tech diaspora.
So, what does the Chinese trajectory look like? Well, it has more similarities than one can imagine.
To understand these dynamics, AIM reached out to Grace Shao, a Hong Kong-based business analyst who specialises in the Chinese tech ecosystem.
The Work Ethic Factor
To begin with, most of the individuals making headlines today moved to the West after completing their undergraduate degree in China or their home country. Others, however, were born and raised in the West.
In any case, Shao said that they continue to hold on to the values passed down through generations, which primarily involve studying hard and viewing education as the key to upward mobility.
“I think the Asian culture as a whole really values education, which is ingrained in us at a young age. Also, studying STEM is also seen as the safe or the right thing to do by a lot of immigrant parents.”
“For many Asians, it is taught that giving up certain parts of your freedom is okay if it translates to a lot of work recognition,” Shao said.
When Elon Musk took over X, he made headlines for converting a few rooms in the office into bedrooms so employees could dedicate long hours to work. Shao said that such events are no news in China and are becoming increasingly common. The infamous ‘996’ schedule, which entails working from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week, is prevalent in many Chinese tech firms.
“When you walk around the campuses of Alibaba or Tencent, you will see beds and couches all throughout the hallways. People are happy to work really hard when they have a joint belief in something they’re working on,” she said.
“Surely, I think you can see that work ethic being brought into the US as well within the AI community,” she added.
A report from The Los Angeles Times stated that in 2024, 45.7% of Google’s US-based workforce comprised Asian individuals. As of 2022, Asian workers comprised 46.5% of Meta’s workforce in the US.
Other companies, including Apple, Meta and Amazon, also employ a high percentage of Asian workers.
In essence, all of the above factors, which are deeply rooted in the Chinese culture, ultimately lead to people working hard in foreign universities during their postgraduate studies, research work, or roles at big tech companies.
Yet, China’s increasingly demanding work environment has taken a significant toll on both physical and mental health, as extensively documented in numerous reports over recent years. Several companies have recognised the disadvantages of this and have pushed back on long work hours since.
The Education Factor
If you look at Indian CEOs or top-ranking officials at US tech companies today, several of them have graduated from top-notch institutes in India, which pose a supremely high barrier to entry, with a highly competitive environment.
And that is no different in Chinese undergraduate universities.
The journey for many of these elite engineers begins with the ‘Gaokao’, China’s notoriously difficult national college entrance examination. In 2025, over 13 million students nationwide participated in the examination.
Chinese schools, such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Zhejiang University, have produced some of the world’s best talent, Shao said. “To get into any of these schools is no easier than getting into a Harvard or a Stanford.”
“The odds, just based on the population of China, make it actually harder to be the top student to get into that. Most of these students rank #1 to #3 in each province in China, to claim a spot in these universities.”
According to the QS World University Rankings, Tsinghua University ranks #7 among all universities in engineering and technology across the world, followed by Peking University (16), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (27), Zhejiang University (36), among others.
For instance, Ruoming Pang, a former Apple manager in charge of foundation models who was hired by Meta, holds a BSc degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Similarly, Xiaohua Zhai and Hongyu Ren, who were hired from OpenAI, have educational backgrounds at Peking University, with Zhai holding a PhD degree from the institute.
According to a report from the New York Times last year, researchers originally from China now comprise 38% of the leading AI researchers working in the US.
However, immigrant talent in the US today confronts many uncertainties. The US visa issuance process has become more volatile and unpredictable than ever, while public opinion and the administration remain sharply divided when it comes to immigrant professionals in America.
Furthermore, China’s rapidly expanding AI sector—both in terms of research and product companies—has created compelling reasons for native talent to stay in the country. Currently, China publishes more AI research papers than any other country in the world.
“Working for big tech in the US no longer holds the same appeal it once did. Companies like Alibaba or DeepSeek now offer salaries comparable to OpenAI, making it far less attractive to abandon family, friends, and cultural roots,” Shao explained.
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