[News Inside] The Startup Chosen by Ma Yun... Where IT Companies Rush with Money?

CEO and Founder of She Re Sensetime

▲Shu Lee, founder of Senstime

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jaehee] A startup endorsed by Alibaba's Jack Ma. A company that IT firms are rushing to invest in.

This refers to 'SenseTime,' which holds the largest number of artificial intelligence (AI) patent technologies in China.

SenseTime, established in 2014, is China's largest AI technology company and a unicorn startup valued at over 1 trillion won.

SenseTime stands out in facial recognition, image identification, video analysis, and medical image interpretation. Additionally, it utilizes its AI technology in autonomous driving and other fields.

Going further, SenseTime is expanding its AI-powered facial recognition technology into various sectors such as mobile payments, loans, and matchmaking.

In particular, by applying facial recognition technology in the fintech sector, it has been evaluated as improving efficiency in non-face-to-face loans by preventing identity forgery.

SenseTime's founder, Xu Li, earned a Ph.D. in computer vision from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Immediately after completing his doctoral studies, he embarked on the path of entrepreneurship in 2014, founding SenseTime. During his doctoral program, his advisor was Professor Tang Xiao'ou, a world-renowned authority in image identification. The AI team led by Professor Tang had already surpassed the research achievements of global companies such as Google and Facebook.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

Xu Li, who was the chief researcher of the team led by Professor Tang, leveraged this connection to secure a large number of excellent researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong as founding members, setting the company on a solid path. SenseTime quickly became the top choice for IT companies' investment calls and attracted an enormous amount of investment. Moreover, as outstanding AI talent gathered, it was even called a black hole absorbing Chinese AI experts.

Although SenseTime was expected to have a smooth path, it recently faced a halt in its Hong Kong stock market listing due to being placed on the U.S. government's investment ban list.

Originally, SenseTime planned to go public (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange by issuing 1.5 billion new shares at HKD 3.85 to 3.99 per share, raising a total of approximately USD 767 million.

However, the U.S. government viewed SenseTime's facial recognition technology as being used by the Chinese government to monitor the Uyghur population in Xinjiang and placed SenseTime on a blacklist prohibiting U.S. investments, thereby halting these plans.

Being on the U.S. investment ban blacklist blocks investments from Americans, which negatively impacts the success of the IPO.

SenseTime plans to attempt the IPO again in the future.

In a statement, SenseTime said, "We strongly oppose the U.S. government's listing on the blacklist" and "We will take appropriate measures to protect the interests of the company and stakeholders."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.