Jasper Zhang, also referred to as Yue Zhang, is the co-founder and CEO of Hyperbolic, a company focused on developing decentralized infrastructure for artificial intelligence.
Zhang achieved his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, in a record time of two years. His career has spanned roles as a quantitative researcher at Citadel Securities and as a senior blockchain researcher at Ava Labs. He founded Hyperbolic in late 2022.
Background and Early Achievements
From a young age, Zhang exhibited a talent for mathematics, competing in various math challenges alongside his mother. He achieved considerable success in high school, securing gold medals at both the Chinese Mathematical Olympiad and the All-Russian Mathematical Olympiad. In 2017, he took first place in the Chinese Mathematics Competition for College Students and received gold medals at the Alibaba Global Mathematics Competition in both 2018 and 2020.
Zhang completed his Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics at Peking University in 2018 before embarking on doctoral studies at UC Berkeley. His Ph.D. thesis, titled 'Guts, Dehn Fillings and Volumes of Hyperbolic Manifolds,' focused on three-dimensional topology. This work inspired the name of his company, Hyperbolic.
Professional Path
After earning his doctorate, Zhang joined Citadel Securities as a quantitative researcher, where he applied mathematical techniques to the financial markets. He later transitioned to blockchain research as a senior researcher at Ava Labs, contributing to the development of the Avalanche blockchain and focusing on the performance and reliability of consensus protocols.
In 2022, he co-founded Hyperbolic, aiming to address the accessibility of AI resources. The company provides an open-access AI cloud, a marketplace that integrates underutilized GPUs from data centers globally. Hyperbolic's platform combines GPU access with services for orchestration, verification, privacy, and inference, facilitating AI development for researchers and startups without the need for substantial hardware investments.
Vision and Mission
Zhang has been vocal about his motivation to found Hyperbolic, identifying a persistent gap between available open-source AI models and the computational resources necessary for their implementation. He emphasizes that open-source does not equate to open-access. Hyperbolic is framed as a values-driven company, with Zhang asserting that the future of AI should be accessible and collaborative rather than restricted to a privileged few.
