As China’s artificial intelligence sector accelerates, competition for top talent has intensified among major tech companies, with firms increasingly poaching from rivals while also attracting researchers from overseas hubs such as Silicon Valley.

A reported high-profile personnel move involving DeepSeek researcher Guo Daya recently drew attention to the sensitivity surrounding AI hiring in China’s tech sector.

Guo, a lead researcher on DeepSeek’s R1 model, joined ByteDance’s Seed AI development team with annual pay said to be as high as 100 million yuan (US$14.7 million), according to Chinese media outlet LatePost on Thursday.

However, Li Liang, a vice-president of ByteDance’s Douyin Group, denied the reported compensation amount in a social media post on Thursday, saying that “ByteDance’s Seed team is placed under the same compensation framework which includes cash remuneration as well as ByteDance equity and Doubao-related stock options”.

He added that it was likely some staff could earn hundreds of millions of yuan by exercising their stock options after four years, but did not confirm whether Guo had joined the company.

The South China Morning Post could not verify the LatePost report. Guo’s name has yet to appear in ByteDance’s internal staff system, a ByteDance employee said, although new staff members may use pseudonyms.