Samsung Electronics has created a new post titled Chief Research Scientist (CRS) to recruit two AI experts with global academic eminence. The company is making an all-out effort to secure AI talents from other countries, with Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong at the helm of the initiative.
The South Korean electronics giant announced Monday that it added Dr. Sebastian Seung (Korean name Seung Hyun-jun·52), a professor at Princeton University, and Dr. Daniel Lee (Korean name Lee Dong-ryeol·49), a foundation chair professor at the University of Pennsylvania, to the researchers pool at Samsung Research. Dr. Seung is taking a role of establishing AI strategies and offering advice on advanced research for the South Korean company. Samsung Electronics has instituted the position of CRS for Dr. Seung, designating him as Samsung’s No.1 CRS.
“We’ve introduced the new C-level position as the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) to work with the top expert with remarkable achievements in the technological field concerned,” said an official from Samsung Electronics.
Dr. Seung is a rising star and a pioneer in the field of connectomics, a study that reconstructs the brain’s wiring diagrams with AI. Connectomics, a brain map, studies how neurons are connected to one another. The main subject of research is the synapse, some 1,000 of which are connected to each of the 87 billion neurons.
“Connectomics will help advance AI technologies significantly, which are based on the neural network studies in the 1970s and 80s,” said Shigeo Okage, a neuroscience expert at the University of Tokyo. According to an expert, Dr. Seung is a pioneer who has played a pivotal role in raising public awareness on the term connectome.
Dr. Lee, a world-renowned AI robotics expert, is going to serve a chief researcher in the field of next-generation machine learning algorithms and robotics.
Industry insiders say that Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong must have played a major role in recruiting the two experts. It has been reported that part of reasons why he left for Toronto in March right after returning to management was to secure AI experts from foreign countries. When in management, Lee Kun-hee, the vice chairman’s father, used to recruit top-level experts by himself. “Globally, there are only few AI experts left as major global companies are racing to recruit them,” explained an industry professional. “Lee is also pursuing ‘AI gurus’ as his father did.”
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