Doctoral researcher Hu Qi, specializing in artificial intelligence agent security at the University of Hong Kong, still has about two years left in his program. However, he is already being courted by headhunters and is interning at a Chinese tech giant that is keen to secure his full-time employment immediately after graduation.

This situation exemplifies a broader trend in the fast-evolving AI sector across Asia, where tech companies face a shortage of top-level research talent and are moving quickly to lock in promising candidates well before they finish their studies. According to Vahid Haghzare, managing director of Silicon Valley Associates Recruitment, a technology recruitment agency operating in Asia and the Middle East, “Companies that wait until graduation to find out who the best graduates are, they’ve already lost.”

Recruiters sometimes approach prospects up to three or four years before they complete their education. Tech firms also organize conferences and seminars to establish early contact with potential hires. Chinese tech giants are notably offering salaries for fresh AI graduates that are 16 times the national average, underscoring the intensity of the competition for talent.

This early recruitment push is extending even further down the academic pipeline as companies strive to secure the next generation of AI researchers.

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