Challenges of artificial intelligence have been tough on the progress of companies attempting to make strides in technology in China. But one company has managed to emerge successful from these artificial intelligence concerns. That company is SenseTime, one of China’s leading AI firms. SenseTime strategy, driven by its CEO and Co-Founder Xu Li, has been able to keep the company going strong in the competitive AI landscape. Although its shares plummeted after the passing of Co-Founder Tang Xiao’ou, the current stewardship of its leaders has greatly helped it to remain profitable by adopting AI industry trends in its growth strategy. At this year’s 10th anniversary, the leader, Xu Li, shared with glee how the company grew its generative AI wing triple-fold and is pushing for more profits in the coming two years. The leader optimistically assured that the company's new money-making machine would be generative AI.
Xu Li gave a glimpse of the company's profit numbers in its generative AI division, which generated $163.4 million in sales last year. He claimed that this is a significant increment, as it is 200 percent more than what was achieved the previous year. The company is still undergoing loss, but it is betting on the technology to rise from what was lost, going forward.
In its latest annual financial report, the company is observed to have garnered revenue of 1.184 billion yuan (US$163.4 million) from its generative AI-related business for last year, indicating a 199.9 percent year-over-year increase.
10th Anniversary Global AI Summit: Rising from the Effects of its Lost Leader
After a long ordeal of the passing of Co-Founder Tang Xiao’ou, SenseTime has come to show the world that it’s back in business by organizing the SenseTime 10th Anniversary Global AI Summit. It gathered around leaders from private and public sectors, especially AI visionaries to honor the upcoming decade of innovation. The summit was themed, "Empowering Inclusive Innovation for the AI 2.0 Era," which chronicles SenseTime’s growth journey from the roots in an educational setting to morning glory in the global AI stage.
It conducted seven sessions of insightful and engaging conversation with leaders who raised their voice on almost every crucial element concerning AI. Ethical governance to the role of AI in the corporate field’s transformation resonated in these talks, including the prospects for the Asia Pacific region and the Middle East.
Honoring Professor Tang Xiao’ou
Under Xu oversaw the organization of two sessions in honor of Professor Tang Xiao'ou, the late founder of SenseTime, the beacon who led the company's mission of building a better tomorrow through AI. He also brought about leaders, acknowledging the significance of encouraging the next generation of AI innovators and igniting innovation in Hong Kong.
SenseTime’s another Co-Founder, Dr. Lin Dahua, along with other eminent scholars who have met Professor Tang, spoke about the leader’s burning spirit that kept the talent in AI growing and how he shared a vision for the technology that stood for a greater social cause.
Soon after that, a thought-provoking debate ensued on the title, Catalyzing Innovation: Elevating Hong Kong’s Collaborative Leadership in the Global Innovation Ecosystem, led by Cindy Chow from the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, Albert Wong from the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, and Dr. Xu Li. Leader Xu Li showcased a timeline of Professor Tang's efforts in converting research into AI solutions that tackle societal issues as well as his impact on Hong Kong's innovation scene, through these two sessions.
Push for Progress in AI
Xu Li highlighted some of the upgrades the company has made to its existing products and solutions, which reflected its efforts in spurring innovation and integrating AI tasks in businesses. He started off by giving the example of SenseCore, the company’s AI infrastructure. The leader said that the solution is the coming together of innovation, generation, and application of AI models, which will pave the way for AI production. This, according to the leader, meant high efficiency, affordability, and scalability. He then showed the company making expansion moves in terms of new computer nodes in places, namely Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou in Guangdong province, Fuzhou in Fujian province, Jinan in Shandong province, and Chongqing. The leader said that the company now boasts an established countrywide network-unified scheduling.
Enhancing Existing Solutions through AI
Back to SenseCore, the leader highlighted that its total processing power currently surpasses 12,000 petaflops. He claimed it sports an acceleration efficiency of 90 percent and a maximum connection of 10,000 GPU (graphics processing unit) clusters. With that, he stressed SenseCore is the most advanced home infrastructure for training large-scale models.
Xu Li then unveiled a new solution, SenseNova 5.5, in which he said that its performance has been boosted by 30 percent. He assured that this is quite greater than its predecessor and that it surpassed GPT-4o in a number of categories. The leader noted that new improvements were done, including upgraded command following, English proficiency, and mathematical reasoning, which puts it on par with GPT-4o in terms of interactivity and other essential metrics.
Acquiring New Customers
The leader also said that the company has gained new generative AI customers, and China-based Haitong Securities, China Telecom, and China Merchants Bank are some of the top names here. Not only that, he revealed that the company has made its move into the Southeast Asian market this month after inking a deal with OCK Group Berhad, another giant in Malaysia’s telecom sector. For the Malaysian telecom behemoth, it will benefit by getting to explore SenseTime’s offerings in behavioral analytics, biometric facial authentication, generative AI, and smart city technology, among others.
Changes in the Leadership Board
The company hasn’t rest easy in its leadership appointments as well. It’s reported that it plans to onboard Dr. Lin Dahua as its new executive director. Dr.Lin happens to have been in the company since 2014, Lin. He is also a co-founder who served as the Group's head scientist for its large model and AI infrastructure businesses. This move is also part of the many efforts by the company after the passing of leader Tang Xiao'ou.
One of the First to be Approved for Public Launch of Generative AI Services by the Chinese Government
Reports claim that SenseTime and tech giant Baidu Inc are among the first companies to receive a nod from the Chinese government to bring their generative AI services to the public. This is viewed as a great encouragement for companies to compete with international tech giants like Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI Inc.
A Strong Cause to Use AI for the Social Good
Following in the footsteps of its leader, Professor Tang Xiao’ou, SenseTime once again proved that it is continuing its cause to use AI for the good of society and promote sustainable growth in all sectors. While the latest anniversary recounted its milestones over the years, the occasion marked a renewed dedication to forging partnerships that maximize AI's potential to address pressing issues in the real world. The company concluded the event by saying that it hopes to be at the forefront of the AI 2.0 era and help create a future where technology fosters sustainable and inclusive development.