Chinese AI Startup MiniMax Launches New Cross-Sector Recruitment Program for Top Experts

(Yicai) May 13 -- MiniMax has launched its "10x Team" program to recruit top experts from various sectors, mainly economics, finance, life sciences, materials chemistry, and mathematics, with the Chinese artificial intelligence startup offering six-figure monthly pay in Chinese yuan.MiniMax seeks talent who can transform their respective expertise into capabilities for its AI models and can deeply integrate the most valuable tasks within their sector with the capabilities of its large language models, breaking through the data and efficiency bottlenecks of traditional research methods, the Shanghai-based company announced on May 11.Recruitment is open to all sectors that can be deeply integrated or have a strong potential for integration with LLMs, such as law, education, physics, and art, MiniMax noted.The program offers two ways to participate. The first is for full-time researchers who can join for the long term and lead the implementation of research in their respective area, while the second is a "fellowship," designed for senior experts who do not want to leave the academic world, but it requires at least four months of offline collaboration. Participants can work in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, San Francisco, and London.MiniMax will offer internationally competitive salaries and abundant computing resources, including unlimited access to the company, the world's top LLMs, and ample graphics processing unit clusters, with no need to queue. It will also provide support for major global databases and open-source datasets.Experts will be allowed to maintain their cooperative relationships with external institutions, MiniMax said, adding that it will support joint training and project collaboration, with the results publicly available by default and to be released at top conferences and journals.Some of MiniMax's peers have similar programs, with Anthropic posting a STEM Fellow position on its website last month, requiring candidates to work at its office full-time for three months, with a weekly allowance of USD3,800, or just over CNY100,000 (USD14,720) per month. OpenAI has also recruited in-house experts for a period of six months, covering mathematics, physics, neuroscience, and other areas, with a monthly salary of around USD18,300.In its latest financial report, MiniMax said net loss widened 302 percent to nearly USD1.9 billion last year from 2024, mainly due to fair value losses on financial instruments reaching nearly USD1.6 billion, with its adjusted net loss up to USD251 million from USD244 million. Revenue surged 159 percent to USD79 million.Shares of MiniMax [HKG: 0100] jumped 6.1 percent to HKD732.50 (USD93.57) per share as of 1.45 p.m. in Hong Kong today. The firm, one of China's six "AI tigers," listed on Jan. 9 at an initial public offering price of HKD165.Editor: Martin Kadiev