17-Year-Old Former Kimi Researcher Joins Jeff Dean’s New AI Firm, Discovery Loop

ChainCatcher reports that Chen Guangyu, a former researcher at Kimi who is 17 years old, has been revealed to have joined Discovery Loop, the AI startup founded by Jeff Dean, former chief scientist at Google. The news was disclosed on October 20 by the anonymous Silicon Valley AI talent-tracking account Arfur Grok. Chen Guangyu had just announced his departure from Kimi five days earlier, having previously contributed to research on the Attention Residuals architecture and the development of Kimi K3. Discovery Loop, established in August this year, was co-founded by four former Google veterans including Jeff Dean. The company aims to enable AI to autonomously generate research hypotheses, run thousands of experiments in parallel, and adjust strategies based on results—initially focusing on AI model development, with future expansion planned into healthcare, materials science, and energy. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is one of its founding investors, and the company has not yet launched any public products. According to Business Insider in September, Discovery Loop is seeking funding at a valuation of approximately $50 billion. Previously, Silicon Valley investor Deedy Das mentioned a 17-year-old boy who received five million-dollar-plus AI job offers; outsiders speculated this referred to Chen Guangyu, though Deedy has never publicly confirmed his identity.