PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Shaoshan Liu

Shaoshan Liu is a computer engineer and entrepreneur whose work spans affordable autonomous vehicles and embodied AI. After earning a Ph.D. in computer engineering at UC Irvine in 2010, Liu worked at Baidu U.S.A. on autonomous driving and founded the visual perception company PerceptIn in 2016. PerceptIn's DragonFly technology enables low-speed autonomous driving at under $10,000 when mass-produced, and Liu's books include Creating Autonomous Vehicle Systems and Robotic Computing on FPGAs. AIRSHIP, an open-source embodied AI software stack for robots, was presented by Liu at GOSIM China in October 2024. At the Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society (AIRS), Liu is Director of Embodied AI, and the open-source AIRSEAI project that Liu initiated there joined the LF AI & Data Foundation in August 2026.

Now at
PerceptIn
Born
1984
Works
228
Citations
3,426
h-index
27
Badges

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2010

    A Ph.D. at UC Irvine

    Raised in Guangzhou, China, Liu earns a Ph.D. in computer engineering from the University of California, Irvine in 2010.

  2. By 2016

    Autonomous driving at Baidu

    Before founding PerceptIn in 2016, Liu works at Baidu U.S.A. on autonomous driving and deep learning infrastructure. A founding member of Baidu U.S.A. and of the Baidu Autonomous Driving Unit, Liu leads the company's system integration of autonomous driving systems.

  3. 2016–2018

    Founding PerceptIn

    PerceptIn begins in 2016 as a company founded by Liu and focused on visual perception solutions for robotics and autonomous driving, drawing venture funding from Walden International, Matrix Partners and Samsung Ventures. Its DragonFly technology enables low-speed autonomous driving at under $10,000 when mass-produced. By June 2018, five PerceptIn bots serve the company's first customer, ZTE, which has a campus in Shenzhen.

  4. 2019–2021

    IEEE Distinguished Speaker

    An IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Speaker from 2019 to 2021, Liu is also a senior member of IEEE. The IEEE Special Technical Community on Autonomous Driving Technologies counts Liu as a co-founder and its founding vice president.

  5. 2020–2021

    Books on autonomous vehicles

    Engineering Autonomous Vehicles and Robots: The DragonFly Modular-based Approach (Wiley) and Creating Autonomous Vehicle Systems (Morgan & Claypool) appear in 2020. Robotic Computing on FPGAs, from Morgan & Claypool, follows in 2021. Creating Autonomous Vehicle Systems is a technical overview of autonomous vehicles written for a general computing and engineering audience.

  6. 2022

    Micro-mobility and mobile clinics

    Founder and chief executive of PerceptIn in 2022, Liu sees the company begin delivering autonomous vehicles for micro-mobility services in Japan and China. Research projects include autonomous mobile clinics, self-driving vehicles with medical diagnostic equipment, telemedicine capability and AI software.

  7. October 2024

    AIRSHIP at GOSIM China

    Speaking at GOSIM China 2024 in October 2024, Liu presents AIRSHIP: Empowering Intelligent Robots through Embodied AI as director of embodied AI at AIRS. AIRSHIP is an open-source embodied AI software stack for robots that understands natural language instructions and carries out navigation and grasping tasks.

  8. As of October 2026

    Embodied AI at AIRS

    At the Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society (AIRS), Liu is Director of Embodied AI, with research fields in embodied AI, autonomous driving, computing systems and technology policy. In August 2026, AIRSEAI, an open-source embodied AI project that Liu initiated at AIRS, joins the LF AI & Data Foundation. The Biggest Risk of Embodied AI is Governance Lag, a paper by Liu, defines governance lag as the time and capability gap between a change in technology deployment and an institutional response, and proposes a compliance architecture built on deployment visibility and stack-level accountability.

Career

  1. 2022–2024University of California, Irvine
  2. Until 2016BaiduFounding Member
  3. From 2016PerceptInFounder, Chief Executive
  4. 2010–2013Microsoft

Education

  1. 2010University of California, IrvinePh.D.

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Edge Computing for Autonomous Driving: Opportunities and Challenges2019 · Proceedings of the IEEE · 774 citations
  2. Computer Architectures for Autonomous Driving2017 · Computer · 188 citations
  3. A Survey of FPGA-Based Robotic Computing2021 · IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine · 119 citations
  4. Creating Autonomous Vehicle Systems2017 · Synthesis lectures on computer science · 117 citations
  5. Building the Computing System for Autonomous Micromobility Vehicles: Design Constraints and Architectural Optimizations2020 · International Symposium on Microarchitecture · 95 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. Google alumni have founded or led 133 other organizations, more than any other AI labIncludes Shaoshan Liu. We estimate that alumni of 17 major AI labs went on to found or lead 350 other organizations, including 226 they founded, and we trace 472 career moves directly between 23 labs since 2010.
  2. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Shaoshan Liu. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  3. Among employers with 30+ full-time cases, OpenAI leads primary technical role H-1B pay at $310,000, and Amazon, Google and Microsoft file 57% of all casesIncludes Microsoft. Across 440,669 certified US H-1B filings from 44 employers (FY2020–FY2026), OpenAI leads primary technical role base pay at $310,000 and xAI leads overall base pay at $290,000.
  4. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Microsoft. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Shaoshan Liu yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Shaoshan Liu - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. “Robots in Disguise” Sparked Shaoshan Liu’s Interest in Autonomous Vehicles | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) aaas.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Shaoshan Liu - IEEE Computer Society computer.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Shaoshan Liu – O’Reilly Author(s) oreilly.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Perceptin's Under $10K Self-Driving Vehicle - IEEE Spectrum spectrum.ieee.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Dr. Shaoshan Liu | Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society airs.cuhk.edu.cn. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Shaoshan Liu - GOSIM China 2024 china2024.gosim.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. LF AI & Data Foundation Welcomes AIRSEAI to Unite Open Source Embodied AI Ecosystem linuxfoundation.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. [2604.21938] The Biggest Risk of Embodied AI is Governance Lag arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.