Liu Ruopeng (; is a Chinese entrepreneur who founded the conglomerate

Kuang-Chi Kuang-Chi Group (; ) is a Chinese company that develops and invests in metamaterial, telecommunication, aerospace, smart-city, AI and digital health technologies. Kuang-Chi was founded in 2010 by five Chinese PhD scholars, led by Ruopeng Liu. ...

. He is also a member of the

Communist Party of China The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

and a

National People's Congress The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China (NPC; ), or simply the National People's Congress, is constitutionally the supreme state authority and the national legislature of the People's Republic of China. With 2,9 ...

deputy.

Early life

Liu has a bachelor's degree in engineering from

Zhejiang University Zhejiang University, abbreviated as ZJU or Zheda and formerly romanized as Chekiang University, is a national public research university based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. It is a member of the prestigious C9 League and is selected into the n ...

. He has a master's degree and a doctorate from Duke University.

Career

While a PhD student at Duke University, Liu allegedly stole intellectual property from a

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...

-funded laboratory and passed it to Chinese researchers, which eventually resulted in his expulsion from the David R. Smith research group at the university. Liu was investigated by the F.B.I., but ultimately was not charged with a crime. The incident is the subject of a book by

ProPublica ProPublica (), legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit organization based in New York City. In 2010, it became the first online news source to win a Pulitzer Prize, for a piece written by one of its journalists''The Guardian'', April 13, 2010P ...

senior editor Daniel Golden, '' Spy Schools: How the CIA, FBI, and Foreign Intelligence Secretly Exploit America's Universities''. In 2015, Liu bought a controlling stake in the loss making New Zealand company Martin Aircraft Company, makers of the yet to be commercially viable

Martin Jetpack The Martin Jetpack was a single-person aircraft under development. Despite its name, it did not use a jet pack as such, but ducted fans for lift. Martin Aircraft Company of New Zealand (not related to Glenn L. Martin Company, the US company al ...

. He is the president of the Shenzhen-based Kuang-Chi Institute of Advanced Technology and the chairman of Hong Kong-listed KuangChi Science.

Personal life

Liu Ruopeng lives in

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...

, China.

References

Living people People from Shenzhen Zhejiang University alumni Duke University alumni Chinese technology company founders Chinese billionaires Year of birth missing (living people) Chinese expatriates in the United States Businesspeople from Guangdong 1980s births {{China-bio-stub