You won’t find SenseTime’s name on the building that houses its Beijing headquarters, but its technology guards the entrance. All workers must clear a security check by SenseTime’s facial-recognition software, and company employees pass a second face scan to enter their offices.
In its entrance hall, SenseTime, a privately-held company now valued at more than $7 billion, shows off some of the products that made it one of the world’s hottest startups in artificial intelligence, and helped the company beat out Facebook’s facial recognition algorithm to become the most accurate in the world. By teaching computers to think like humans, AI technologies can replicate functions like speech, hearing and — SenseTime’s specialty — vision.
A digital billboard in the lobby, for example, shows how SenseTime-enabled cameras placed in stores capture images of shoppers and then sort them by age and gender, creating valuable demographic data bought by retailers. On another screen
Subscribe or register to read the rest. Registered users can access a limited amount of content for free.
Subscribers get full access to:
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
When one of the biggest fast food brands in the world spun off its China operations, naysayers warned it would miss out on massive growth potential. But the setup’s success since could serve as a reality check for U.S. companies.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkPrivacy policy
