--- title: "The quiet operator behind Kling: how Cheng Yixiao turned a video model into Kuaishou's $18 billion crown jewel" date: 2026-11-01 category: Builders site: NeuroAI canonical: https://neuroai.site/a/na-people-cheng-yixiao-kling language: en --- # The quiet operator behind Kling: how Cheng Yixiao turned a video model into Kuaishou's $18 billion crown jewel > Kuaishou CEO Cheng Yixiao turned an in-house video model, Kling AI, into an independently funded unit worth roughly $18 billion. For years the headline act at Kuaishou was the platform itself — the livestreams, the small-town creators, the endless feed. The most valuable thing the company now owns may be a model almost no user ever opens directly. ## Key takeaways - Cheng Yixiao is co-founder, chairman and CEO of Kuaishou, the Chinese short-video and social platform, and oversees the AI strategy that produced Kling. - Kling AI, launched in June 2024, released Kling 4.0 in October 2026 with up to 30 seconds of native single-pass video, 4K HDR output and richer reference controls. - Kling AI's revenue topped 850 million yuan (≈ US$118 million) in the second quarter of 2026, up more than 200% year over year, per Kuaishou's official results. - In July 2026 Kling AI closed an independent funding round of about $3 billion at a roughly $18 billion post-money valuation, with Kuaishou retaining control. - By June 2026 Kling AI reported more than 100 million global users across 224 countries and regions and about 50,000 enterprise clients. ## The operator, not the inventor Cheng Yixiao is not the engineer who trained Kling. On Kuaishou's own leadership page he is listed as co-founder, executive director and CEO, responsible for business operations, products, strategy and investment. What makes him worth profiling is the decision to let a video model become its own company. Kuaishou is best known for a decentralized feed built on small-city and rural creators, a contrast to flashier rivals. Under Cheng, the company has leaned hard into AI — not just as a recommendation tweak but as a standalone business. His own words in Kuaishou's second-quarter 2026 results frame the thesis: AI's strategic value is being "unlocked" across content, marketing, e-commerce and internal operations, and Kling sits at the front of that push. ## Kling goes pro Kling AI launched in June 2024 and spent two years moving from a curiosity to a production tool. The 3.0 series, released in February 2026, added native audio across languages and longer clips. Kling 4.0, launched on October 15, 2026, is the clearest sign of where it is heading: - Up to 30 seconds of video in a single generation pass, extendable toward two minutes. - 4K and 1080p output in 10-bit HDR, plus a 21:9 cinematic ratio. - An "Omni Reference" system that accepts up to 15 reference assets — images, videos and subjects — to keep characters and shots consistent. - Prompt lengths up to 8,000 tokens and support for roughly nine languages. The pitch is not "prettier frames" but reliability: Kling wants to deliver the key shots a professional would otherwise reshoot, so generated footage can drop into a real post-production pipeline. The base was not built cold: Kuaishou says that since its June 2024 launch, Kling has served more than 60 million creators worldwide, produced over 600 million videos and partnered with more than 30,000 enterprise clients. ## A business, not a feature The financials explain the spin-out. In Kuaishou's official second-quarter 2026 results, Kling AI's revenue exceeded 850 million yuan (≈ US$118 million), growing more than 200% year over year, while the parent's total revenue reached 35.5 billion yuan (≈ US$4.9 billion) and adjusted net profit was 3.9 billion yuan. Kling is still a small slice of the whole, but it is the fastest-growing one. In July 2026 Kuaishou announced that Kling AI had closed an independent financing of about $3 billion, at a post-money valuation near $18 billion, with Kuaishou keeping roughly a 68% stake. The deal included a five-year window to list — turning a product team into a separately capitalized company with its own investors and incentives. ## How far it has reached Kuaishou says Kling AI passed 100 million global users by June 2026, across 224 countries and regions, with about 50,000 enterprise clients. Those numbers, if sustained, put it among the most widely used generative-video tools outside the largest U.S. labs. The competitive field is crowded — rivals from ByteDance, Alibaba and MiniMax are shipping their own video models — but Kling's early start and creator base give it a defensible position. According to Li An, chief scientist at BrainNet (脑机网), spinning a video model into an independently funded unit shows how Chinese platforms now treat generative media as a standalone business rather than a feature bolted onto an app. ## Honest limitations Kling's user and revenue figures come from Kuaishou's official results and announcements; they are company-reported and not independently audited in this profile. The $18 billion valuation and $3 billion round derive from Kuaishou's Hong Kong exchange announcement, carried by financial press. Benchmark quality of Kling 4.0 is asserted by the company, not re-tested here. The five-year listing clause means the standalone story depends on a future event that may slip. I profile Cheng Yixiao as the operator who scaled Kling, not its lead engineer — that role sits with Kling AI's own technical leadership. ## What readers can do now - If you make video, test Kling 4.0's 30-second generation and reference controls on a real project before committing to a subscription. - Watch for Kling AI's standalone IPO documents, which will be the first independent look at its unit economics. - Compare Kling against at least one rival video model on the same prompt; vendor demos rarely survive a side-by-side. --- Published by NeuroAI (https://neuroai.site/) — https://neuroai.site/a/na-people-cheng-yixiao-kling Free to quote with attribution and a link to the original.