Wang Huiwen, a co-founder of Meituan and founder of Light Year (Guangnian Zhiwai), has returned to Meituan to lead its artificial intelligence efforts. His team, internally known as “GN06,” is focused on AI companions and chatbots. Job listings for GN06 indicate a mission to foster AI experimentation, with Wang personally overseeing interviews for product and operational roles—a signal of his hands-on approach.

A source close to Meituan told 36Kr that GN06 reports directly to Wang, functioning as an autonomous team within the company. This structure allows GN06 to work outside Meituan’s core business frameworks, sidestepping its existing large model and AI teams.

GN06’s leading project is Wow, an AI-powered companion app launched in November 2023. Wow enables users to create customizable avatars with distinct personalities, voices, and appearances within an interactive AI environment. Since summer, GN06 has intensified its recruitment, with job listings reflecting an emphasis on North America as a priority market. Positions span roles across frontend, backend, client-side development, product, operations, and analytics, with requirements often including familiarity with overseas AI markets.

In a related development, Meituan recently launched Miaoshua, an image generation app, at the end of October. This app lets users upload photos and customize templates to create unique AI-generated images. Meituan’s AI journey began in early 2023, amid the industry surge spurred by ChatGPT’s popularity.

Wang Huiwen entered the large model scene in 2023, founding Light Year to explore this frontier. Meituan’s founder, Wang Xing, invested in Light Year’s Series A funding round and joined its board. Light Year raised USD 230 million within two months, supported by ZhenFund, Source Code Capital, and Sequoia Capital, and soon acquired OneFlow Technology, growing to over 70 employees. However, Wang Huiwen later stepped back due to health reasons, and Meituan acquired Light Year for RMB 2.065 billion (USD 290 million) in June 2023, integrating Light Year into Meituan.

Despite his health setback, Wang Huiwen remained engaged in AI. In August 2023, Yuan Jinhui, a co-founder of OneFlow and Light Year, launched SiliconCloud, with Wang as an advisor and angel investor. In April, Meituan CEO Wang Xing announced Wang Huiwen’s recovery and his planned return to Meituan in an advisory role. Now as GN06’s leader, Wang is fully back in AI innovation.

Wang Huiwen was among the first major tech leaders in China to launch a large model startup, drawing significant attention across the country’s AI industry. Since then, China’s AI landscape has evolved, with six leading players—Zhipu AI, MiniMax, Moonshot AI, Baichuan Intelligence, 01.AI, and Stepfun—shifting their focus from building a Chinese equivalent of OpenAI to developing next-generation applications.

In a 2023 interview, Wang Huiwen described his work in AI as an ambitious challenge that attracted him for its openness to exploration and creativity, rather than direct competition. Now back at Meituan, Wang brings this forward-looking perspective to help shape AI’s future.

KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Yong Yi for 36Kr.