The list of 322 newly appointed PhD supervisors, published on March 31, shows Su as a professor in electronic information.

Previously, Su, who holds doctorates in both mathematics and computer science, was a tenured associate professor at University of California San Diego (UCSD) and chief technology officer of Hillbot, an U.S.-based AI robotics company focused on industrial applications.

He is widely recognized in the field of embodied AI, a branch of artificial intelligence that enables machines to perceive, reason, and interact with the physical world. His academic work has accumulated more than 145,000 citations on Google Scholar, placing him among the most influential researchers globally, according to the South China Morning Post.

Su said in a 2025 technology podcast that his interest in AI began in junior middle school. "That was the first time I felt that human intelligence might not be so unique, or rather, something that machines can reproduce."

He earned his bachelor’s degree and doctorate in applied mathematics from Beihang University before pursuing further research in the U.S..

World's leading AI robotics scientist Su Hao. Photo courtesy of UC San Diego

In 2008, he joined Princeton University as an exchange student, where he participated in the ImageNet project led by Li Fei-Fei, often known as the "godmother of AI." The dataset later became a foundation for modern deep learning, particularly in computer vision, which enables computers to interpret and analyze images.

"Before ImageNet, people used to think it would take 200 years to crack computer vision. We’ve made amazing progress in just 10 years," Su said in an October 2024 interview with AsiaTechDaily.

He later transferred to Stanford University to pursue a doctorate in computer science under Li. Before completing his PhD, Su had already established himself in 2D and 3D computer vision and embodied AI, securing an assistant professorship at UCSD in 2017.

He later shifted focus toward robotic AI. In 2020, his team developed SAPIEN, a simulation engine designed to model interactions between robots and humans. In 2021, he launched the ManiSkill robot operation competition based on the platform, contributing to the development of evaluation benchmarks in embodied AI. In July 2025, he co-founded Hillbot.

Su also served as program chair of the 2025 Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference and received the CVPR Young Researcher Award and the Frontiers of Science Award in China last year.