# Andrew Ng

Andrew Ng is a British-American computer scientist and entrepreneur known for co-founding Google Brain and Coursera, and for his work in democratizing deep learning education. He has taught over 8 million students online and leads the AI Fund and LandingAI.

Andrew Yan-Tak Ng (Chinese: 吳恩達; born April 18, 1976) is a British-American computer scientist and technology entrepreneur focusing on [machine learning](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/machine-learning) and [artificial intelligence](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/artificial-intelligence). He co-founded and headed [Google Brain](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/google-deepmind) and served as Chief Scientist at Baidu. Ng is an adjunct professor at [Stanford University](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/stanford-ai-lab) and has co-founded Coursera and DeepLearning.AI, teaching over 8 million students through online courses. He is recognized in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2012 and Fast Company's Most Creative People in 2014, and was named in the Time100 AI Most Influential People in 2023.

## Early life and education

Ng was born in London in 1976 to Ronald Paul Ng, a hematologist and lecturer at UCL Medical School, and Tisa Ho, an arts administrator at the London Film Festival. His parents were immigrants from Hong Kong, and the family moved back to Hong Kong during his early childhood, then to Singapore in 1984. He graduated from Raffles Institution in Singapore.

In 1997, Ng earned an undergraduate degree with a triple major in computer science, statistics, and economics from [Carnegie Mellon University](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/carnegie-mellon-university). Between 1996 and 1998, he conducted research on reinforcement learning, model selection, and feature selection at AT&T Bell Labs. In 1998, he completed a master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the [Massachusetts Institute of Technology](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/mit-csail), where he built the first publicly available, automatically indexed web-search engine for research papers, specialized in machine learning.

In 2002, Ng received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the [University of California, Berkeley](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/berkeley-ai-research), supervised by [Michael I. Jordan](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/michael-jordan). His thesis, "Shaping and policy search in reinforcement learning," remains well-cited.

## Academia and teaching

Ng joined Stanford University as an assistant professor in 2002 and became an associate professor in 2009. He served as director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL), teaching and researching data mining, big data, and machine learning. His CS229 machine learning course is the most popular on campus, with over 1,000 students enrolling in some years. As of 2020, three of the most popular courses on Coursera were Ng's: Machine Learning (#1), AI for Everyone (#5), and Neural Networks and Deep Learning (#6).

In 2008, his Stanford group was among the first in the US to advocate using GPUs in [deep learning](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/deep-learning), a controversial decision at the time that later became a cornerstone of the field. Since 2017, Ng has advocated shifting to high-performance computing for scaling deep learning.

In 2012, Ng co-founded Coursera with Stanford computer scientist Daphne Koller, serving as CEO. The platform offered free online courses, with over 100,000 students registering for Ng's CS229A course initially. Today, several million people have enrolled in Coursera courses, making it a leading massive open online course platform.

## Industry career

From 2011 to 2012, Ng worked at Google, founding and directing the Google Brain Deep Learning Project with Jeff Dean, Greg Corrado, and Rajat Monga. This project developed large-scale [artificial neural networks](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/neural-network) using distributed computing infrastructure, with notable results in unsupervised learning.

In 2014, Ng joined Baidu as chief scientist, leading research on big data and AI. He established teams for facial recognition and Melody, an AI healthcare chatbot, and developed the DuerOS platform. In March 2017, he announced his resignation from Baidu.

Soon after, Ng launched DeepLearning.AI, an online series of deep learning courses, and LandingAI, which provides AI-powered SaaS products. In January 2018, he unveiled the AI Fund, raising $175 million to invest in AI startups. In November 2021, LandingAI secured a $57 million series A round led by McRock Capital. In October 2024, the AI Fund made its first investment in India, backing healthcare startup Jivi, which uses AI for diagnoses and treatment recommendations.

## Research contributions

Ng's research focuses on machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, and natural language processing. He has won best paper awards at academic conferences. During graduate school, he co-authored the influential paper introducing latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) with David M. Blei and Michael I. Jordan.

His early work includes the Stanford Autonomous Helicopter project, which developed one of the most capable autonomous helicopters. He was principal investigator on the STAIR (Stanford Artificial Intelligence Robot) project, which resulted in the Robot Operating System (ROS), a widely used open-source robotics platform. His vision of home robots inspired Scott Hassan to back him and create Willow Garage. Ng also helped found the Stanford WordNet project, which uses machine learning to expand the Princeton WordNet database.

## Democratizing AI education

Ng has spearheaded efforts to "democratize deep learning," teaching over 8 million students through online courses. His courses on Coursera and DeepLearning.AI cover topics from [machine learning](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/machine-learning) fundamentals to specialized areas like [generative AI](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/generative-ai) and [large language models](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/large-language-model). He has been a vocal advocate for making AI education accessible globally, including initiatives in developing countries.

## Recognition and influence

Ng's influence extends beyond academia and industry. He was named in Time's 100 Most Influential People in 2012 and Fast Company's Most Creative People in 2014. In 2023, he was included in the Time100 AI Most Influential People list. On April 11, 2024, Amazon announced Ng's appointment to its board of directors, reflecting his standing in the technology sector.

## Current work

As of 2024, Ng continues to lead the AI Fund, investing in startups across sectors, and serves as an adjunct professor at Stanford. He remains active in research and education, promoting the responsible development of AI and its applications in healthcare, robotics, and other fields. His work with LandingAI focuses on helping enterprises adopt AI-powered solutions.

## Legacy

Ng's contributions have shaped modern AI, from foundational research in reinforcement learning and deep learning to large-scale educational platforms. His advocacy for GPU computing and high-performance computing influenced industry practices. Through Coursera, DeepLearning.AI, and the AI Fund, he has created lasting infrastructure for AI development and education worldwide.

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Source: https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/andrew-y-ng
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
Last updated: 2026-09-12T22:24:13.672044+00:00