I'm Zack Li. I build scalable AI systems end to end — from model training and software architecture to Gen AI inference that ships on device.
I'm a Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer at Qualcomm, leading GenieX, the generative AI inference runtime that runs frontier models across Snapdragon NPU, GPU, and CPU. I also contribute to llama.cpp and support new GenAI models on Qualcomm® AI Hub.
I cofounded Nexa AI as CTO, building Nexa SDK (now GenieX) into a leading on-device AI runtime—#1 on GitHub Trending, #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt, and 8k+ GitHub stars. I co-authored the Octopus and Omni model series—top-2 trending on Hugging Face and showcased at Google I/O and by Google DeepMind. I drove enterprise adoption with customers like HP and Lenovo, and led engineering delivery alongside partners including Qualcomm, AMD, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and more.
Before Nexa, I built on-device AI and software systems at Google, Amazon Lab126, and Cadence. I hold an M.S. from Stanford University (2019) and a B.E. from Tongji University (2017).
A GenAI inference runtime that runs any frontier model on the edge in one line of code, across NPU, GPU, and CPU. Hit #1 on GitHub Trending and #1 Product of the Day. Our app Hyperlink, built on it, reached 2.1M views and 30K users in two months. Recognized by Qualcomm, AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, IBM, and Microsoft.
On-device agentic AI models: a pioneering series using functional tokens for strong function calling across phones, PCs, wearables, cars, and robots. Reached Hugging Face's top two trending models, and spotlighted at Google I/O and Google DeepMind.
Qualcomm (Blog)Developer blogs on Snapdragon Android, the Hexagon NPU, Granite 4.0, and IoT & robotics.
AMD (LinkedIn)Posts from AMD, AMD Enterprise, and AMD Developer, plus an interview on its developer channel.
Google DeepMindOur model OmniAudio is featured by Google DeepMind in its Gemmaverse, a showcase of models built on Gemma.
Google (Blog)Highlighted in the 2024 Gemma keynote, with posts from Google AI Developers and Google Devs.
Hugging FaceRanked our models among the most-downloaded from 2022 to today; CEO Clément Delangue called to collaborate.
MicrosoftDemoed our product on stage at the Ignite 2025 keynote and listed us as a software partner for Windows.
© Copyright 2026 Zack Li.
