Why I’m becoming a professor in AI safety in Beijing

Cross-posted from Sören Mindermann's substack (I am not Sören). Should be of general interest to the LW community. Next month, I am moving to Beijing and joining Tsinghua University’s College of AI as an assistant professor working on frontier AI safety, especially loss of control. I have also started co-directing the new Beijing AI Safety Hub (BASH) in Tsinghua, and I continue my Cambridge work. I believe I can have a large impact there compared to strong baseline options. This post explains why. In short: Amid concerns about loss of control, calls for international cooperation, and the Trump-Xi Summits, there is a striking lack of mutual understanding on AI between the West and China. There are strong reasons to believe that being in Beijing in person will put me in a unique position to understand both AI ecosystems, build shared scientific understanding, and strengthen safety work in China – and that this would help all sides. Tsinghua’s College of AI is a great place for doing this, being arguably China’s top academic AI center, located in an AI ecosystem that is kind of like San Francisco, DC and Cambridge (MA) in one place. I am recruiting PhD students, postdocs and other researchers at Tsinghua. BASH accepts applications for a residency cohort, visitors, and a Chief of Staff. 1. What I am doing, and why it could benefit all sides Alongside the technical professorship at Tsinghua’s College of AI, I recently started as Co-Director of the new Beijing AI Safety Hub (BASH) in Beijing. This is a working community inspired by crucial hubs like Constellation and the London Initiative for Safe AI and supported by Tsinghua University, which brings together Chinese and international AI safety researchers. We have accepted the first cohort for the Beijing AI Safety Residency, held inside the hub, and applications are open for the Spring 2027 cohort. It is one concrete way for international researchers to build some of the first sustained working relationships with