Three years ago, Tang Xiao’ou joked to an audience at Massachusetts Institute of Technology that it was his company, SenseTime, rather than Google, that instantly came to mind when people talked about artificial intelligence.
Today, SenseTime, one of China’s brightest hopes for its plan to lead the world in AI, is preparing for a $2bn public listing in Hong Kong that may come before the end of the year.
Known for its expertise in facial recognition, SenseTime has raised more than $3bn from investors including SoftBank, Alibaba, Tiger Global and Silver Lake, making it one of the four most hyped AI companies in China, together with its peers Megvii, Yitu and CloudWalk.