Cien Zhang, Co-Founder of Topaas.AI – Giving AI Agents the Context to Transform Legacy Software | TiE Women’s Program Silicon Valley 2026
At the TiE Women’s Program – Silicon Valley Finals, we spotlight women founders building the infrastructure behind the next generation of technology. Cien Zhang, Co-Founder of Topaas.AI, is tackling a challenge that becomes increasingly important as AI transforms software development: how can AI coding agents safely understand and work with massive, complex legacy codebases?
Through its Laplace Engine, Topaas.AI is building a structured intelligence layer designed to give AI agents the context they need to understand not only what code does, but how different parts of an enterprise system connect and support underlying business logic.
The Problem
Large enterprises rely on software systems that have often been developed and modified over many years — sometimes decades.
These legacy codebases can contain millions of lines of interconnected code, undocumented dependencies, and business logic embedded throughout the system.
For AI coding agents, simply providing more raw code context does not necessarily solve the problem.
Without understanding the relationships between components and the business logic behind them, AI agents can struggle to safely navigate complex systems or make changes without introducing unintended consequences.
As enterprises look to modernize their technology stacks, there is a growing need for AI that can understand the structure and context of existing software, not just individual lines of code.
Topaas.AI’s Solution
Topaas.AI builds the Laplace Engine, a structured intelligence layer for large legacy codebases.
Rather than treating a codebase as a massive collection of files and text, Laplace maps code dependencies and business logic into structured context that AI coding agents can understand.
This gives agents a richer representation of how an enterprise system works — helping them navigate relationships, understand dependencies, and reason about changes across complex software environments.
The approach is designed to enable AI coding agents to:
- Understand complex legacy systems
- Map dependencies across large codebases
- Interpret underlying business logic
- Navigate interconnected software components
- Modernize existing systems
- Safely transform enterprise software at scale
Why This Matters
AI coding agents are rapidly changing how software can be developed. But enterprise modernization presents a different challenge from building a new application from scratch.
The software that enterprises depend on cannot simply be discarded and rebuilt. It often represents years of accumulated business logic, operational knowledge, and mission-critical functionality.
That makes context critical.
Topaas.AI is addressing this challenge by creating a structured intelligence layer between complex enterprise code and AI agents — helping agents work with the architecture and logic of existing systems rather than relying solely on raw context.
The opportunity extends beyond code generation. It is about enabling AI to participate more effectively in the understanding, modernization, and transformation of enterprise software.
From Raw Code to Structured Intelligence
The central idea behind the Laplace Engine is that understanding software requires more than reading its individual components.
Large systems contain relationships: one service depends on another, a piece of code supports a particular business process, and seemingly small changes can have implications across an entire architecture.
By mapping these relationships and business rules into structured, agent-readable context, Topaas.AI is working to give AI coding agents a more complete picture of the systems they are operating on.
This creates a foundation for AI agents to move beyond isolated coding tasks and work with large-scale enterprise software systems.
About the Founder
Cien Zhang, Co-Founder of Topaas.AI, is helping build technology at the intersection of artificial intelligence, software engineering, and enterprise modernization.
Through Topaas.AI, Cien and the team are addressing one of the fundamental challenges of bringing AI into large enterprise environments: giving AI agents the context and understanding required to work safely with complex, interconnected software.
Her work reflects what the TiE Women’s Program champions — women founders building the technologies and infrastructure that can shape the next generation of innovation.
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The TiE Women’s Program supports women founders through:
- Expert-led masterclasses
- 1:1 mentorship
- Access to investors and industry networks
- Pitch preparation and opportunities
- Local and global connections
Through the program, founders gain the knowledge, connections, and platform to strengthen their businesses, refine their stories, and share their vision with a broader entrepreneurial community.
Because when women founders build the technologies shaping what comes next, the future of innovation becomes more inclusive.
Watch Cien Zhang’s Pitch
👉 Watch Cien Zhang pitch Topaas.AI’s vision at the TiE Women’s Silicon Valley Finals:
Learn more about Topaas.AI:
https://topaas.ai/