Sentient Expands Across Asia

Sentient, a pioneering open-source artificial general intelligence (AGI) company backed by top investors including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Pantera Capital with $85 million in seed funding, is expanding its presence across East Asia through an ambitious campus tour series and enterprise outreach program aimed at advancing and democratizing AGI innovation.

As access to AGI accelerates, most leading AI tools remain closed-source, with opaque values and unclear boundaries. Sentient is committed to advancing open-source AGI development, identifying China and the broader East Asia region as pivotal in this democratization movement. China is strengthening its open AI ecosystem and shipping rapidly with open-weight AI models such as DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Ling-1T, enabling entrepreneurs, researchers, and students to participate easily in AI innovation.

“Our vision is to broaden and democratize open-source AGI development,” said Sandeep Nailwal, Polygon’s co-founder and co-founder of Sentient. “The new generation of students and young talents in China and East Asia represent a powerful starting point for building AGI together. By engaging them early, we are encouraging hands-on participation in shaping the future of open AGI.”

From October 24–31, 2025, TinTinLand, in partnership with Sentient, will host the Sentient East Asia Tour in Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul.

Event Schedule

• October 24, 2025 — Open AGI Symposium, Tsinghua Science Park, Beijing
• October 26, 2025 — Open AGI Symposium, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai
• October 28, 2025 — Open AGI Symposium, Seoul, South Korea
• October 31, 2025 — Open AGI Symposium, Tokyo, Japan

Keynote speakers such as Prof. Zhixuan Fang of Tsinghua University, and Zhuolin Yang, Research Scientist at NVIDIA’s Applied Deep Learning Research Lab (ADLR), Wooming Song and Jaehyun Nam, Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence students at KAIST, who will discuss open-source AI alongside Sentient researchers Edoardo Contente, Sewoong Oh (University of Washington), and Peiyao Sheng.

Developers, students, researchers, and investors will gather to explore Sentient’s technical architecture and vision, including translating AGI tools for the Chinese, Japanese and Korean communities. Past campus tours at institutions such as Fudan University and Shenzhen University drew more than 1,500 participants, where Nailwal engaged directly with young engineering and scientific talent.

To learn more about Sentient’s Asia Roadshow, follow our symposium calendar here.