He is the son of Haishou Yang (Chinese: 杨海寿), an Astronomer in China.

He graduated from Peking University with a degree in astrophysics and went to the US through the CUSPEA exams in 1982.

He obtained his doctorate degree in computer science from the University of Maryland in 1989[4] (supervisor: Dana S. Nau).

[5] He is the head of Noah's Ark Lab which was founded by Huawei and headquartered in Hong Kong in June 2012.

He is a member of the IJCAI trustee between 2011 and 2017 and the program chair of IJCAI-15 held in Buenos Aires.