SU alum Yinfei Ru dedicates his career to exploring AI’s creative side
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In 2009, Yinfei Ru landed at the Syracuse Hancock International Airport at 2 a.m. before meeting a car full of Syracuse University students, all ready to help with his transition moving to the United States.
Setting up a new bank account, going grocery shopping and registering for classes were overwhelming, but Ru was fueled by the promise of the American Dream.
Originally from Xi’an, the capital of China’s Shaanxi Province, Ru graduated from China’s Northwest University in 2009. Shortly after, Ru knew he wanted to pursue his master’s degree in the U.S. and SU was at the top of his list.
During his studies at SU, Ru said classes such as operating systems taught him the foundations of the computer science industry. He said the class projects taught him how to break down complicated problems into smaller pieces and to understand the fundamentals of what he was working on.
“I still remember there were many nights I didn’t leave the lab until like 1 or 2 a.m. in the morning. Those were very great memories for me,” Ru said. “And most importantly, by studying that course and finishing all the labs and the materials, it taught me how to approach a large, complex and unfamiliar system.”
Geng Xu has known Ru for about 15 years, since the pair were classmates at SU, both earning their master’s degrees at the same time. During their time on campus, the two would play badminton and often study together in Bird Library. After graduating in 2011, they moved to a shared apartment in Silicon Valley, where they both said most of the opportunities in the tech field were located.
“At that time it’s not easy to get a job. I think he (was) the second guy to get a full-time job,” Geng said. “I can tell he works really hard every day even after coming from the office, he still works hard or learns new technology.”
Zaicheng Wang, a 2014 electrical engineering graduate from SU, worked with Ru from 2021 to 2025 at CloudKitchens, a ghost kitchen company, where Ru worked as an engineering manager. While working together, Wang said Ru was a leader and had the passion and knowledge to teach junior engineers in his spare time, spending a minimum of two hours a week with each junior engineer on staff.
“Some junior engineers need a lot of help understanding the business goal to understand the project, he’s not rushing or pushing them too hard,” Wang said. “He’s kind of trying to protect the junior engineer and give them time (to) learn more things.”
Over the course of Ru’s career, he’s worked with over six different companies, the most recent being OpenArt AI, where he works as the head of engineering. Created in 2022 by Coco Mao and John Qiao, OpenArt AI is an all-in-one AI platform for media, ranging from generating and editing photos to creating videos and scripts.
Before OpenArt AI, Ru worked in a more technical space, choosing to go into the more creative world of AI because of how fast the industry has grown.
“I didn’t really want to miss out,” Ru said. “I saw an opportunity to contribute both my management experience and technical expertise into the company.”
During Ru’s time at OpenArt AI, the platform amassed about 8 million monthly users. Ru said the team’s biggest achievement came in June through the AI tool named Director, which has the ability to generate cinematic-quality videos. It can take roughly 10 to 20 minutes to generate a two-minute clip.
“If you asked me five years ago if I could make a video on my own, I couldn’t believe it. But nowadays, after we launched Director, I was able to create multiple very high-quality videos by myself,” Ru said. “So I think for the first time I truly felt that I’m empowered by AI. It enabled me to accomplish something that I would have never thought of.”
