An intern who was sued for $8 million after being fired by ByteDance—Peking University PhD Tian Keyu—has started a company in the world model field

Tian Keyu, the intern who was fired by ByteDance for attacking large-model training, has already launched a business in the world model field and received investment from a well-known VC.
According to business registration information, Tian Keyu currently serves as the legal representative and executive officer of Beijing Blue Charcoal Network Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Blue Carbon Network Technology Co., Ltd., and the Sanya Haitang District Carbon Blue Network Technology Studio, among other companies.
Among them, Beijing Blue Carbon Network Technology Co., Ltd. was established on February 6. In addition to Tian Keyu (holding 60%), the shareholders include Zhang Zihang, Wang Zhen, Ban Han Yuan, Jia Li, and Wei Gengchen (many of whom are Tian Keyu’s fellow classmates from Beihang University). The business scope covers computer technology, AI hardware, intelligent robots, and the research, development, and promotion of AI-related technologies.
Beijing Charcoal Blue Network Technology Co., Ltd. was established on May 27, 2026, with a registered amount of $1.9M. It is 100% controlled by Arewuo Intelligent Co., Ltd., and its main executives are Tian Keyu and Jia Li.
Insiders say Tian Keyu’s startup project is in the world model direction. It was incubated and invested in by Meng Xing, a partner at Wuyuan Capital, with total funding in the tens of millions of dollars, and an estimated valuation of about $200 million.
Previously, in October 2024, some media outlets said, “A ByteDance large-model training task was attacked by an intern,” and online rumors claimed, “It involved more than 8,000 GPUs and losses of more than $20k.” Afterward, ByteDance issued a factual clarification via its official account, saying that there indeed was an intern who committed severe violations, and that the intern involved was dismissed by the company in August 2024.
Subsequently, an internal ByteDance release—the fourth 《Enterprise Discipline and Professional Ethics Committee Notification》 of the year—further disclosed details of the incident. The notice stated that from June to July 2024, former intern employee Tian (Tian Moumou) in the Group’s commercial products and technology department, dissatisfied with how team resources were allocated, maliciously attacked the model training tasks for the team’s research projects by writing and tampering with code, causing resource losses.
The company terminated the intern’s internship agreement, and simultaneously reported to the Sunshine Integrity Alliance and the Enterprise Anti-Fraud Alliance, and also reported to the school the intern is attending for handling.
On November 25, 2024, ByteDance sued former intern Tian Keyu for tampering with code to attack the company’s internal model training case, and the case was formally accepted by the People’s Court of Haidian District, Beijing.
ByteDance asked the court to order Tian Keyu to compensate the company for $8 million in infringement losses and $20k in reasonable expenses, and to publicly apologize and make amends.