Lee-Feng Chien
Former Managing Director, Google Taiwan
About
Lee-Feng Chien (簡立峰) served as the inaugural Managing Director of Google Taiwan from 2006 to 2020, growing the office from one employee to over 3,000 and establishing it as one of Google's largest R&D centers globally. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from National Taiwan University in 1991 and previously held positions as Research Fellow and Deputy Director at Academia Sinica's Institute of Information Science, with a joint professorship at NTU. A pioneer in Chinese information retrieval and natural language processing, he has published over 100 papers in top-tier conferences. Since retiring from Google, he has become a leading voice on AI strategy in Taiwan, serving on the boards of AI companies Appier and iKala and mentoring the startup ecosystem.
Key Contributions
- Built Google Taiwan from its first local presence into one of Google's major Asia-Pacific engineering and R&D centers
- Brought earlier research depth in Chinese information retrieval and natural-language processing into Taiwan's internet industry era
- Helped make Taiwan visible inside global AI and cloud supply chains, not only as hardware manufacturing capacity
- Mentored Taiwan's software and startup ecosystem as a senior bridge between academia, global platforms, and local founders
- After Google, advised startups, government, and public debate through board roles at Appier, iKala, and Taiwan's AI ecosystem
- His institution-building impact is large, though it also reflects Taiwan's dependence on foreign platform companies for parts of its AI infrastructure
