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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Business -> 
SenseTime now world’s most valuable AI startup
    2018-04-10  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

SENSETIME Group Ltd. has raised US$600 million from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and other investors at a valuation of more than US$3 billion, becoming the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence (AI) startup.

The company, which specializes in systems that analyze faces and images on an enormous scale, said it closed a Series C round in recent months in which Singaporean state investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte and retailer Suning.com Co. also participated. SenseTime didn’t outline individual investments, but Alibaba was said to have sought the biggest stake in the 3-year-old startup.

With the deal, SenseTime has doubled its valuation in a few months. Backed by Qualcomm Inc., it underscores its status as one of a crop of homegrown firms spearheading China’s ambition to become the leader in AI by 2030.

The latest financing will bankroll investments in parallel fields such as autonomous driving and augmented reality, cover the growing cost of AI talent and shore up its computing power.

It’s developing a service code-named “Viper” to parse data from thousands of live camera feeds — a platform it hopes will prove invaluable in mass surveillance. And it’s already in talks to raise another round of funds and targeting a valuation of more than US$4.5 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter.

“We’re going to explore several new strategic directions and that’s why we shall spend more money on building infrastructure,” SenseTime co-founder Xu Li said in an interview.

The company turned profitable in 2017 and wants to grow its workforce by a third to 2,000 by the end of this year. “For the past three years the average revenue growth has been 400 percent,” said Xu.

Alibaba, the e-commerce giant that’s also the country’s biggest cloud service provider, could help with its enormous infrastructure needs.

SenseTime plans to build at least five supercomputers in top-tier cities over the coming year to drive Viper and other services. As envisioned, it streams thousands of live feeds into a single system that’s automatically processed and tagged, via devices from office face-scanners to ATMs and traffic cameras (so long as the resolution is high enough). The ultimate goal is to juggle 100,000 feeds simultaneously.

Police can use Viper to track everything from accidents to suspects on blacklists. The technology is deployed in various ways by authorities around the world.

SenseTime claims some 400 clients and partners including Qualcomm, chipmaker Nvidia Corp. and smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp.

For 2018, it’s projecting several billion yuan in revenues, Xu said. The startup’s expanding its reach across augmented reality, popularized by services like Snapchat that impose digital stickers and images on the real world. And it’s working with Honda Motor Co. to develop autonomous driving systems and is in talks to work with health institutions.

SenseTime is the largest, according to CB Insights, of a plethora of private AI outfits. Fellow facial-recognition startup Megvii Inc. raised US$460 million last year, while smaller niche players from Yitu to Malong Technologies have also won funding. A key partner, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of security cameras and is developing its own competing AI technology.

Xu said its ability to work across wide datasets and diverse products sets it apart from rivals. “What is difficult is if you’re dealing with different video streams in different formats,” he said. While the company has long considered an initial public offering, Xu said those plans are on hold pending rules that facilitate tech listings on the mainland.(SD-Agencies)

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