Today we’d like to introduce you to Guoliang Cao.
Hi Guoliang, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My journey into AI and community building really began at the intersection of two passions: a deep fascination with technology and a genuine desire to make complex ideas accessible to everyone.
I came to North Carolina a few years ago, and when I arrived in the Research Triangle, I was struck by how much incredible AI research and talent existed here — at Duke, UNC, NC State, and across the region’s booming tech sector.
That motivated me to co-found the Research Triangle AI Society in 2024. We started modestly — organizing small meetups and seminars — but the response from the community was immediate and energizing. People were hungry for exactly this kind of space. Within our first year, we had grown to 600 members online and hosted major events including the Carolina AI Conference and the Research Triangle AI Conference, each drawing more than 100 participants from academia, industry, and the public.
What’s made RTAI meaningful to me personally isn’t just the scale of what we’ve built — it’s the diversity of who shows up. We run bilingual programming in English and Chinese, we partner with universities and experts, and we work hard to make sure that conversations about AI ethics, safety, and opportunity aren’t just happening among insiders.
Today, as president and co-founder, I’m proud of what we have achieved already. But honestly what drives me every day is the belief that the future of AI has to be shaped by a wide and diverse community — not just technologists, but educators, policymakers, artists, and everyday citizens. That’s the mission we’re building toward.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Honestly, no — it hasn’t always been smooth. As a pioneer in bringing AI education to broader audiences, one of our biggest challenges has been simply getting people’s attention. When you’re trying to reach communities outside of tech — people who may not yet see AI as relevant to their lives — it takes enormous effort just to get them in the room. We’ve had our fair share of events where turnout fell short of what we hoped for.
But those experiences taught us a lot. We’ve learned to listen more carefully to what different communities actually want to know about AI, refine how we communicate our message, and meet people where they are rather than expecting them to come to us. We try to stay optimistic and treat every setback as useful data. The mission is too important to be discouraged by early stumbles.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
By background, I’m a technology enthusiast and software developer — someone who genuinely loves diving deep into how things work. Over the years I’ve built expertise in software systems, I have multiple projects published on GitHub and I’m fortunate to have earned respect among peers in the technical community.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Raleigh honestly checks a lot of boxes for me. It’s clean, well-maintained, and the people are genuinely friendly. The weather is about as good as it gets on the East Coast — four distinct seasons without the brutal winters or sweltering summers that other regions deal with. And geographically, Raleigh sits right at the heart of Research Triangle Park, one of the most significant technology and research corridors in the entire country. It has world-class universities, cutting-edge biotech and tech companies, and a growing startup ecosystem all within a short drive. For what RTAI is trying to do, there’s honestly no better place to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://research-triangle.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/research-triangle-ai/?viewAsMember=true
- Twitter: https://x.com/rtai2025
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ResearchTriangleAI
- Other: https://www.meetup.com/rtai2025
