Wang Huiwen, co-founder and former senior vice president of Meituan, wrote on Monday that he wants to build a Chinese version of OpenAI, the company behind chatbot tool ChatGPT. Wang will invest $50 million for a 25% stake in the company, offering the remaining 75% shareholding to research and development talent he plans to hire. Wang’s Beijing-based Guangnian Zhiwai Tech Co. Ltd. was originally founded in 2018 with registered capital of RMB 1 million and is currently 100% owned by the former Meituan exec, according to the corporate registry database Qichacha. In Wang’s personal post, he claimed that a “top VC” had already subscribed, pledging $230 million to the company. Wang has changed his social media signature from “learning crypto” to “learning artificial intelligence”, as last year’s Web3 craze gives way to this year’s AI frenzy. Wang’s announcement comes after a flurry of Chinese tech majors declared plans to launch their own equivalents of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Microsoft plans to invest more than $10 billion in OpenAI over several years. [Wang Huiwen’s statement, in Chinese]