{"id":77724,"date":"2018-04-11T16:22:43","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T23:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/the-worlds-most-valuable-ai-startup-is-a-chinese-company-specializing-in-real-time-surveillance"},"modified":"2018-04-11T16:22:43","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T23:22:43","slug":"the-worlds-most-valuable-ai-startup-is-a-chinese-company-specializing-in-real-time-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/the-worlds-most-valuable-ai-startup-is-a-chinese-company-specializing-in-real-time-surveillance","title":{"rendered":"The world\u2019s most valuable AI startup is a Chinese company specializing in real-time surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-worlds-most-valuable-ai-startup-is-a-chinese-company-specializing-in-real-time-surveillance.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Artificial intelligence is being used for a dizzying array of tasks, but one of the most successful is also one of the scariest: automated surveillance. Case in point is Chinese startup SenseTime, which makes AI-powered surveillance software for the country\u2019s police, and which this week received a new round of funding <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sensetime.com\/news\/669.html\">worth $600 million<\/a>. This funding, led by retailing giant Alibaba, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/alibaba-invests-in-chinese-facial-recognition-startup-1523264424\">reportedly<\/a> gives SenseTime a total valuation of more than $4.5 billion, making it the most valuable AI startup in the world, according to analyst firm CB Insights.<\/p>\n<p>This news is significant for a number of reasons. First, it shows how China continues to pour money into artificial intelligence, both through government funding and private investment. Many are watching the competition between China and America to develop cutting-edge AI with great interest, and see investment as an important measure of progress. China has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2018\/2\/22\/17039696\/china-us-ai-funding-startup-comparison\">overtaken the US<\/a> in this regard, although experts are quick to caution that it\u2019s only one metric of success.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, the investment shows that image analysis is one of the most lucrative commercial applications for AI. SenseTime became profitable in 2017 and claims it has more than 400 clients and partners. It sells its AI-powered services to improve the camera apps of smartphone-makers like OPPO and Vivo; to offer \u201cbeautification\u201d effects and AR filters on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo; and to provide identity verification for domestic finance and retail apps like Huanbei and Rong360.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2018\/4\/11\/17223504\/ai-startup-sensetime-china-most-valuable-facial-recognition-surveillance\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2018\/4\/11\/17223504\/ai-startup-sense...rveillance<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Artificial intelligence is being used for a dizzying array of tasks, but one of the most successful is also one of the scariest: automated surveillance. Case in point is Chinese startup SenseTime, which makes AI-powered surveillance software for the country\u2019s police, and which this week received a new round of funding worth $600 million. This [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1498,45,1490,1512,6,1511],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-augmented-reality","category-finance","category-government","category-mobile-phones","category-robotics-ai","category-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}