This doesn't mean anything. Most of those (the good ones, at least) are Chinese grad students at western universities. The cream of the crop are grad students at American universities (or Montreal). Most would jump at a chance to work in US academia or at Google/FB.

Don't know man. Lived in China for years and people that made it to the US, tended to stay there. You just have to look at the lines that form in Shanghai in West Nanjing Rd for student/tourist visas. Of course there is a lot of people that also return, but the people I knew, just went into the banking sector and ended up depending on family connections more than education itself.

As for the cream of the crop, I can tell you I saw a couple of guys that were really outstanding in the startup scene, and one was from the Max Planck institute in Germany and the other was from a Chinese university (and not precisely Tsinghua, Fudan or Jiao Tong).

It seems we are in agreement? The Chinese grad students (who are presumably the best students, since the western universities are the best for CS) that make it to the US stay there.

We agree on the part that they stay there, but they are hardly the best students. In fact, the vast majority of people that actually do go abroad is directly connected to the fact that they could not make it in the very difficult Chinese high school test. And since a privileged kid will have more resources, they just go abroad and skip the line so to speak. But the level of social mobility that you see in China is incredible, because that test truly favors the best to go to the best universities.

But we disagree that in a conference like the one mentioned, most of the Chinese people you would encounter are going to be US educated.

Baidu also attracts lots of people.

Sure, but not the best talent. In fact Baidu got a pretty bad rep for cheating in ImageNet.

> Most of those (the good ones, at least)

2 questions: 'good' by what metric, and where are you getting your data from?

My own personal experience with research at a first-ranked CS uni; which is no more or less valid than frisco's anecdote ;)