Former Microsoft AI chief Harry Shum to chair board of news aggregation start-up News Break

News Break has gained popularity in the US news market over TikTok-owner ByteDance, whose Jinri Toutiao is one of the most popular news aggregators in China

Silicon Valley-based News Break uses an “interest engine” that integrates search and AI-powered recommendation technologies

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Harry Shum, News Break's new board chairman. Photo: Handout

Published: 4:30pm, 28 May 2020Updated: 4:30pm, 28 May 2020

Microsoft's former head of artificial intelligence and research Harry Shum has been appointed chairman of the board of News Break, a Silicon Valley-based news aggregator with Chinese venture capital backing, the start-up announced on Wednesday.

“As one of the brightest minds in the technology industry, Harry brings a wealth of technical leadership and business savvy to the company that we will leverage to grow News Break into the world's No. 1 Intelligent Local News Platform,” said Jeff Zheng, News Break’s founder and CEO.

News Break’s stand-out feature is an “interest engine” that integrates search and AI-powered recommendation technologies. The app has 23 million monthly users and a growing network of over 10,000 content providers covering more than 20,000 local communities throughout the US, the company said in a news release.

Zheng, a former Yahoo executive, founded News Break’s owner Particle Media in 2015 after co-founding Chinese news aggregator Yidian Zixun in 2011. Particle Media's investors include IDG Capital, ZhenFund and NetEase Capital, according to previous Chinese media reports.

News Break has gained popularity in the more mature US news market over TikTok-owner ByteDance, whose Chinese-language Jinri Toutiao news aggregator is the second-most downloaded app in China after Alibaba Group Holding’s UC Browser, according to App Annie. (Alibaba is the parent company of the Post.)

Particle Media’s app was the third most downloaded among all iOS news apps in the US, much higher than Jinri Toutiao, which ranked 78th, according to App Annie data on Thursday morning. ByteDance’s English language news aggregator app TopBuzz, which the Chinese company was reportedly seeking to sell last year, was not in the top 500 of the category.