Weitong Qian

Weitong Qian钱韦潼

Undergraduate, Peking University · Incoming PhD Student, PKU School of Computer Science

I am a senior undergraduate in Engineering and Scientific Computing at the College of Engineering, Peking University (Class of 2027). I will join the PKU School of Computer Science as a PhD student, advised by Prof. Bin Cui.

I work on using AI to build AI: developing systems in which AI accelerates, automates, and extends the very process by which AI is created and deployed.

I am interested in turning AI inward on its own stack — the infrastructure it runs on, the algorithms that train it, the research process that produces it, and the physical embodiments through which it acts.

My research spans four layers of this stack:

  1. 01
    AI for AI Infrastructure Agents that write, profile, and optimize the kernels AI runs on.
  2. 02
    AI for AI Algorithms LLMs and Bayesian optimization searching ML pipelines and hyperparameters together.
  3. 03
    AI for AI Research Memory-centric research agents that accumulate experience across projects and improve themselves from experimental and reviewer feedback.
  4. 04
    AI for the Physical World Embodied agents and world models that extend AI's reach beyond the screen.

Leadership & Service/ 01

Publications/ 02

NeurIPS 2026

Tree-Structured Synergy of Large Language Models and Bayesian Optimization for Efficient CASH

Beicheng Xu, Weitong Qian, Lingching Tung, Yupeng Lu, Bin Cui

Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2026 · arXiv:2601.12355

NDBC 2026

AutoSci: A Memory-Centric Agentic System for the Full Scientific Research Lifecycle

Weitong Qian*, Beicheng Xu*, Zhongao Xie*, … , Bin Cui (19 authors; * equal contribution)

43rd CCF China National Database Conference (NDBC), 2026 · arXiv:2605.31468

Projects/ 03

01AI for AI Infrastructure

GPU Kernel Optimization Agent In progress

An open-source agent system that autonomously writes, profiles, and optimizes CUDA kernels — pushing AI further down its own software stack.

02AI for AI Algorithms

LB-MCTS NeurIPS 2026

Combined Algorithm Selection and Hyperparameter optimization (CASH) with an LLM and Bayesian optimization sharing one Monte Carlo search tree. The LLM reads the search path and proposes semantically informed candidates; Bayesian optimization fits algorithm-specific surrogates; a reliability-aware policy hands control from the LLM to BO as the surrogates improve. Outperforms BO, LLM, and hybrid baselines on 104 AMLB datasets.

03AI for AI Research

AutoSci Project lead NDBC 2026 Top 100 · WAIC 2026 OPC ★1724

A memory-centric agent system for the full scientific research lifecycle — from literature ingestion and idea generation to experiment execution, manuscript writing, and reviewer rebuttal. Structured persistent memory separates reusable knowledge from project-level artifacts; a feedback-driven self-improvement loop converts experiment outcomes and review signals into versioned updates to skills and memory, so the system compounds across projects.

FrontierPilot 2nd Prize · Zhongguancun Lobster Competition

An AI research-onboarding tool, built on the OpenClaw skill platform. Given a topic, it constructs a self-contained, growing knowledge base — field overview, foundational and frontier papers, peer reviews, knowledge graph — that a newcomer can converse with directly.

04AI for the Physical World

Embodied RL @ Galbot Feb – Jun 2025

Vision-based, RL-driven non-prehensile grasping; RL controllers for stable and adaptive locomotion on quadruped and biped robots over varied terrain. Advised by Prof. He Wang.

AI Robot Scientist Experiment System 3rd Prize · Beijing Challenge Cup

A system in which embodied AI agents autonomously plan and conduct scientific experiments — research automation extended into the physical world.

Experience/ 04

PKU-DAIR, Peking University — Undergraduate Researcher Jul 2025 – Present

LLMs, agents, and AutoResearch / AI for AI, advised by Prof. Bin Cui.

Galbot (北京银河通用机器人) — Algorithm Intern Feb 2025 – Jun 2025

Research on vision-based, RL-driven non-prehensile grasping; RL controllers for legged robots. Advised by Prof. He Wang.

Awards/ 05

Competitions & Recognition

Scholarships & Honors

News/ 06

  1. Fall 2026 LB-MCTS accepted at NeurIPS 2026.
  2. Fall 2026 Admitted to the PKU School of Computer Science as a PhD student, advised by Prof. Bin Cui.
  3. Aug 2026 AutoSci accepted at NDBC 2026.
  4. Aug 2026 Selected for the first cohort of Kimi Global Ambassadors by Moonshot AI.
  5. Jun 2026 AutoSci named to the Top 100 of the WAIC 2026 Future Tech OPC Pioneer Challenge, and presented as a poster at the BAAI Conference “Agent for Science” competition.
  6. May 2026 AutoSci preprint released on arXiv.
  7. Apr 2026 Open-sourced AutoSci — a memory-centric agent system for the full research lifecycle.
  8. Mar 2026 FrontierPilot wins 2nd Prize in the Academic Track of the Zhongguancun Beiwei Lobster Competition.
  9. Jan 2026 LB-MCTS preprint released on arXiv.
  10. Nov 2025 Represented PKU students at the 2025 Jiangsu AI Innovation and Development Conference, helping launch the 2026 International AI OPC Startup Competition.

Friends/ 07