From Google to Ant: How He Zhengyu Built Ant’s Trusted Native Cloud Platform

In March 2021, the World Economic Forum announced its list of 112 Young Global Leaders, and Ant Group’s Trusted Native Technology Department head He Zhengyu was selected as the sole representative from China’s internet industry.

His inclusion validates years of deep work in foundational computer technology and inspires young programmers that focusing on low‑level systems can also shine.

Although well‑known in open‑source and low‑level system circles, many younger developers may not recognize his name. The interview explores his growth, current role at Ant, and his advice for the next generation.

Early Academic Excellence

He entered Beijing Institute of Technology before age 16, earned a Ph.D. from Georgia Tech, and later joined Google’s kernel team, where he founded the open‑source project gVisor.

His mother, a math teacher, moved schools to give him better education, and his father’s weekend presence meant his mother shouldered both teaching and parenting duties.

He attended an accelerated program at Hunan Normal University’s affiliated high school, facing intense competition and frequent eliminations, which he describes as the most pressure‑filled period of his life.

During graduate studies, his mentor Wei Ping emphasized problem‑oriented development over merely publishing papers, instilling a pragmatic research mindset.

He received a full scholarship to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, where he discovered the potential of GPUs for his research despite procurement obstacles, learning to proactively secure resources.

He later secured a Google internship before completing his doctorate, seamlessly transitioning from academia to industry.

Trusted Native: Ant’s Vision

Returning to China, He joined Ant Group to lead the Trusted Native Technology Department, aiming to build a trustworthy production environment using modern foundational technologies such as cloud‑native, secure containers, confidential computing, trusted hardware, and mini‑program runtimes.

Ant’s evolution from buying Oracle databases and writing PHP to developing OceanBase and other middleware reflects a shift from solving functional and availability issues to prioritizing reliability, then trust and security. The next era focuses on data privacy and system security, making infrastructure inherently trustworthy and reducing the burden on application developers. Trusted Native seeks to lower the barrier for engineers to build secure, reliable applications, similar to how TensorFlow democratized AI.

Under his leadership, Ant built one of the world’s largest Kubernetes production clusters, pioneered zero‑trust cloud‑native security in finance, contributed to CNCF, OpenStack, and CCC, open‑sourced Occlum (the only Chinese project in CCC), and delivered trusted chips in collaboration with Pingtouge.

Advice for Young Engineers

He stresses the importance of practical experience over theory, recommending early involvement in open‑source projects to bridge the gap between academia and industry.

He advises students to prepare for the workplace while still in school, emphasizing that the real difference lies in practice, not just theoretical knowledge. Participating in open‑source not only connects Chinese developers with the global community but also offers opportunities for internships and jobs.

He encourages focusing on core technologies such as operating systems, compilers, and databases, noting that mastery of these fundamentals enables long‑term impact and career longevity.

He highlights that rapid technology turnover often masks the enduring importance of low‑level infrastructure, and that future growth in China will favor those who invest in foundational software.

He concludes by inviting passionate, long‑term‑oriented engineers to join his team, promising the chance to work on world‑class technologies and achieve ten‑fold impact.