Jiang Yuming: Building Tangible, Trustworthy AI

For Jiang Yuming, PhD graduate from NTU’s College of Computing and Data Science (CCDS), artificial intelligence offered a way to combine creativity with real-world value.

Shaping Research Through Generative AI

“My interest in generative AI stems from its intuitiveness and creativity,” Yuming shares. “The outputs of generative models are immediately visible, whether it is an image or a video. That makes the research process both engaging and rewarding.”

His PhD, under Associate Professor Liu Ziwei and Professor Chen Change Loy, focused on controllable generative AI. His open-source projects have been adopted by both researchers and industry practitioners, earning over 9,500 stars on GitHub. His published papers have accumulated more than 2,400 citations on Google Scholar.

“My PhD journey at NTU shaped the way I approach research,” Yuming adds. “It trained me to think critically and solve problems from first principles. When faced with a challenging issue, I learned how to break it down into smaller, manageable subproblems and tackle them step by step.”

From Code to Community

“It is incredibly fulfilling to see my work being recognised and used by others,” says Yuming. “It reinforces the value of doing open and impactful research.”

He was awarded the Google PhD Fellowship (2022) and named an ICLR Notable Reviewer (2023). “They gave me more confidence and positive reinforcement during my PhD,” he says. “They also served as motivation, pushing me to aim higher. I see them as acknowledgements of the environment and people who supported me, especially my advisors and the team I worked with.”

These milestones continue to motivate him “to take on more challenges, and to do research that’s not only technically solid but also meaningful.”

Rooted in Responsibility

Yuming has long valued service and teamwork. “Actually, I do not take these as leadership in a formal sense,” Yuming reflects. “I just enjoyed taking responsibility, helping others, and making things work better for the group.

Looking ahead, Yuming hopes to stay actively engaged in the community. He believes real progress comes not just from individual breakthroughs but from a culture of sharing, service, and collective effort.

While research and professional growth have been important to him, Yuming continues to value contributing to broader communities through his work.

AI You Can See and Touch

Now at Alibaba Southeast Asia, Yuming works on embodied AI; intelligent systems that interact with the physical world. “I have always been drawn to building AI that is visible and tangible... Robotics is where machine intelligence truly meets real-world utility.”
He applies his research in controllable generative AI and system-level thinking to this next frontier.

Looking Ahead

“Ultimately, I want my work to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and real-world applications,” he says. “I want to contribute to AI systems that are more capable, grounded, and helpful.”

Yuming’s story reflects a quiet conviction: to build AI that is not just intelligent, but useful, tangible, and grounded in community.