Organized by New York University, the Second China–US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition concluded successfully on November 22 at Vanderbilt Hall of the NYU School of Law. The event brought together founders and investment institutions from both China and the United States, attracting an audience of over 300 attendees. The competition aims to deepen bilateral exchange in technological innovation and early-stage entrepreneurship, further integrating the two ecosystems across talent, technology, and capital.
This year’s competition embraced the theme of “Openness, Innovation, and Connection,” focusing on artificial intelligence, large-model applications, cross-border technology services, and enterprise solutions. According to the organizers, China and the United States each hold unique advantages in AI and the broader startup ecosystem. The competition serves as a platform for young entrepreneurs to transcend geographic boundaries, showcase innovation, and build cross-cultural entrepreneurial cooperation.
A clear trend emerged among this year’s submissions: AI technologies accelerating their integration into vertical industry scenarios. Among the eight finalists, multiple teams presented solutions applying AI to multimedia marketing, new-energy technology, gaming, and healthcare.
To gain deeper insight into the core challenges and opportunities facing AI founders, we interviewed one of this year’s judges, Chenxi Huang (Chelsey), a prominent quantitative investor and entrepreneurship mentor. Having founded multiple startups herself, Chelsey approaches early-stage companies with more than an investor’s lens. She has built products and teams from scratch, navigated market validation, business-model selection, and the constraints of limited early resources. These consecutive entrepreneurial experiences enable her to evaluate AI projects with structured clarity—differentiating between conceptual narratives and opportunities with real commercial pathways, and assessing founders’ decision-making through the lens of execution pace and industry timing.
“The real moat is foresight, not IQ.”
Host: In your view, what is the most important quality of an exceptional AI founder?
Chenxi H.: I believe the most critical capability of a founder is not IQ, but foresight. You must act one or two steps ahead of the market.
If you simply follow trends, you will always be chasing the tail end of a wave, and by the time the wave arrives, you’ve already missed it. A real founder needs to see industry shifts before they materialize—and have the courage to validate early.
Everyone today is saying AI is easy to build, that you can fine-tune a model and get something working. I actually think the opposite: as technical barriers fall, strategic judgment becomes significantly more important. Models can be replicated, parameters can be copied, but foresight cannot.
“Team alignment beats team size.”
Host: Beyond foresight and strategic judgment, how important is team-building for early-stage founders?
Chenxi H.: I also deeply feel the importance of the team. Entrepreneurship is not about one person grinding alone—it’s about whether you can inspire others to follow your conviction. In the early stage, what matters most is not the size of the team, but alignment and rhythm. A team running in the same direction, making decisions together, often outperforms a single technical breakthrough.
Women Founders in Silicon Valley: Competing in the Same Arena
Host: How do you view the situation of women founders in Silicon Valley’s innovation ecosystem?
Chenxi H.: To be honest, while the U.S. tech industry is open on the technical front, within the founder ecosystem, women do need more time to build confidence and presence. Entrepreneurship is an extremely competitive game; it does not slow down or soften just because you are a woman.
That’s why I believe women founders must have the same level of ambition as men—if not more. You cannot position yourself as a “female founder”; you must position yourself as a founder, competing with the strongest players in the market. Your sense of direction, your speed, and your execution rhythm all need to benchmark against the best.
I often call this the “competitive logic of the arena.” Capital, markets, and timing windows will not wait for you. Breakthroughs do not come from gender—they come from whether you can make earlier, faster, and sharper decisions at critical moments.
Technical Trends: Open-Source Acceleration and 2026 as the Inflection Point for Industry-Specific Model Specialization
Host: Based on the AI projects you’ve observed, what technical trends stand out this year?
Chenxi H.: Looking at the broader trend, I’ve noticed that many teams this year are using open-source large models as the core of their underlying tech stack—and this reflects a major shift. China’s models have advanced rapidly in the past two years; systems like Qwen and DeepSeek are enabling founders worldwide. For early-stage teams, lower costs and shorter experimentation cycles mean you can reach real product-market fit faster.
I describe the current phase as: “resources are accessible; execution is the differentiator.”
In other words, technology is no longer the scarcest resource. Judgment and execution are. Those who identify real scenarios, real pain points, and real monetizable workflows will be the ones who break out in this cycle.
I believe 2026 will be a pivotal year when AI applications enter full-scale industry deployment. Founders in both China and the United States will be riding the same wave—competing and collaborating—and the next generation of tech companies will be shaped in this window.
As the interview concluded, the technical direction and entrepreneurial spirit demonstrated throughout the competition became even clearer. With the successful closing of the Second China–US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, the organizers reaffirmed their commitment to fostering ongoing exchange between founders from both countries in AI, technology, and innovation. This year’s event showcased not only the creativity and execution of young entrepreneurs from China and the U.S., but also underscored an important truth: the future of AI belongs not just to technology itself, but to founders with foresight, alignment, and the courage to build across cultures.
