Tang Xiaoou, the founder of SenseTime, left: the world is full of peaches and plums, and the big AI remains in the world

Every reporter: Zhu Chengxiang, Ke Yang, every editor: Zhang Haini

On the evening of December 16, SenseTime released the obituary of the company's founder Tang Xiaoou on the official account: "It is with an extremely heavy heart that we announce to you a sad news: our beloved founder, artificial intelligence scientist, director of Pujiang Laboratory, director of Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and professor of Chinese University of Hong Kong, Tang Xiaoou, left us forever at 23:45 on December 15, 2023 due to ineffective treatment for illness. ”

Image source: Screenshot of WeChat public account 

"The branches and leaves of Colin are exhausted in three springs, and the waves of learning are dry overnight. An industry insider who is not familiar with Tang Xiaoou quoted an adapted poem to express regret.

Shocked and deplored, a number of academics and industry professionals expressed similar emotions to the reporter of "Daily Economic News". "I am deeply saddened and regretted that Mr. Tang is an influential professor who is usually humorous and approachable, but also full of national feelings and strategic vision. A SenseTime insider who did not want to be named said.

According to SenseTime's 2023 interim report, its ultimate holding company is Amind Inc. (incorporated in the Cayman Islands), and the ultimate controlling shareholder of the group is Professor Tang Xiaoou.

"Professor Tang Xiaoou's wisdom, enthusiasm and endless exploration of science will always inspire us to stay true to our original aspirations and forge ahead. His company's mission, 'Insist on Originality and Let Artificial Intelligence Lead Human Progress' will inspire all SenseTime people to climb new heights and complete his unfinished business." SenseTime wrote in its obituary.

The world's leading AI leader

According to the IPO of SenseTime, SenseTime was co-founded by scientists and practitioners in the field of artificial intelligence such as Tang Xiaoou, Xu Li, Wang Xiaogang, and Xu Bing. Tang is responsible for designing the company's research and innovation strategy, as well as facilitating research partnerships with connected universities and academic institutions, while Xu Li is responsible for the company's vision, business development and day-to-day operations.

In short, Tang Xiaoou is in charge of research, and Xu Li is in charge of operations. With the close cooperation of entrepreneurial partners such as Tang Xiaoou and Xu Li, SenseTime has successfully become the first of the "AI Four Tigers" in China.

In the obituary, SenseTime said that Professor Tang Xiaoou is an outstanding representative in the field of artificial intelligence in mainland China. He is knowledgeable, rigorous, pragmatic, pioneering and innovative, full of family and country feelings and strategic vision. He is willing to serve as a ladder for others, reward post-graduates, be determined to innovate, bravely shoulder heavy responsibilities, dedicate all his energy to computer science research, actively promote the development of original technology, and make outstanding contributions to the development of science and technology in the field of artificial intelligence in mainland China. He has been cultivating students for more than 20 years. They will inherit the spirit and philosophy of Professor Tang Xiaoou and move forward bravely on the road of developing artificial intelligence.

What kind of spiritual concepts and feelings does Tang Xiaoou have? His speech at the 2022 annual meeting of SenseTime Technology may be a good experience. At that time, Tang Xiaoou said: "All our efforts today are for the next generation, and the difficulties we encounter are getting bigger and bigger year by year, but the opportunities in front of us are also getting more and more year by year." We are solving these difficulties so that the next generation will not encounter these difficulties again, and in the end the world will still be fair. If these things aren't so difficult, why is it our turn?"

The reporter of "Daily Economic News" once visited the Shanghai headquarters of SenseTime, and its "black sheep" culture is impressive. Tang Xiaoou once said that the culture of Shangtang is more like the culture of sheep, and it is the black sheep in the flock, "Be a blacksheep. Dare to be different. Dare to be different, dare to innovate". He also showed a photo of a zebra sheep "out of nothing" with artificial intelligence technology and humorously said: "AI is about creating things that don't exist yet." ”

Shanghai headquarters of Tangshang Technology Image source: Photo by reporter Zhang Yun (data map) 

Tang's contribution is not limited to SenseTime. It has not only cultivated a large number of talents for the AI industry, but also actively promoted AI to empower all industries. Tang Xiaoou delivered a speech entitled "Artificial Intelligence, Great Love (AI) Without Borders" at the 2018 World Artificial Intelligence Conference.

"AI needs to cooperate with traditional industries, and this relationship is to combine and empower, not to subvert. The value of AI is to help traditional industries improve production efficiency and liberate productivity. ”

Tang Xiaoou has cultivated a large number of talents for China's AI industry, and he also attaches great importance to AI education in the field of basic education. It is reported that SenseTime has cooperated with East China Normal University and the Commercial Press to release the world's first artificial intelligence high school textbook "Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals (High School Edition)".

In addition, Tang Xiaoou also advocated that the development of artificial intelligence requires the wisdom of the world, and global enterprises and institutions should strengthen cooperation to open up the national boundaries of AI academic research. This is another meaning of "Boundless Love".

It's a pity that when the AI field was surging, this AI leader suddenly left.

An AI company staff also expressed his sorrow over Tang Xiaoou's death, telling the "Daily Economic News" reporter: "I just saw this news, I am shocked, I am really jealous of the talent! For Chinese artificial intelligence, Mr. Tang not only founded the head AI company SenseTime, but cultivated many technical talents for the AI industry and promoted the progress of Chinese artificial intelligence original technology." Some colleagues in our company also sent this news, and they were shocked and regretted. ”

SenseTime is entering an "extremely critical period of development"

In SenseTime, Tang Xiaoou is the core figure.

In 2014, Tang Xiaoou and his student Xu Li co-founded SenseTime, and Xu Li is currently the CEO and chairman of SenseTime. Regarding the founding team, SenseTime stated in its prospectus: "Over the years, they have attracted top scientists, engineers and business talent, leading the company from a research-focused team to a leading AI company with commercial success." ”

In the short-selling turmoil half a month ago, short-selling institutions questioned that SenseTime insiders and major shareholders, including Tang Xiaoou, were eager to sell their stocks and cash out. In this regard, SenseTime responded in the announcement that Tang Xiaoou, the executive director and controlling shareholder of the company, has not sold the company's shares actually held by him since the company's listing, and promised not to reduce his holdings within two years from December 30, 2022.

At the release of SenseTime's 2023 semi-annual report, Xu Li said: "In this semi-year, SenseTime ushered in an extremely critical period of development, with our 'daily new' large model system and AI large device SenseCore bringing outstanding performance, and we seized the new opportunities brought by technological breakthroughs to release the first large language model in China with comprehensive capabilities that surpass GPT-3.5-turbo, allowing us to achieve a year-on-year growth of 670.4% in generative AI-related revenue." We hope to bring stronger large-scale model capabilities to the industry and help our users make disruptive products in the era of generative AI. ”

In terms of performance, in the first half of 2023, SenseTime achieved revenue of 1.433 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.3%, a net loss of 3.142 billion yuan, a year-on-year narrow, and an adjusted net loss of 2.393 billion yuan.

Among the four major business segments, the smart business segment achieved revenue of 854 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 50.2%, still maintaining a steady growth, the second largest source of revenue, the smart life segment, achieved revenue of 312 million yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 6.7%, while the smart city and smart car business showed a significant decline. Among them, the revenue of the smart city segment was 184 million yuan, down 57.7% year-on-year, and the revenue of the smart car segment was 84 million yuan, down 30.5% year-on-year.

But at the same time, in the era of large models, SenseTime is indeed embracing new market opportunities.

In 2023, SenseTime will launch the "RiRixin" large model system and AI large device SenseCore, and release a series of generative AI products based on the "RiRixin" large model, including "SenseChat", "SenseMirage", "Ronin SenseAvatar", etc.

According to the semi-annual report, in the first half of the year, SenseTime's generative AI-related revenue increased by 670.4% year-on-year, and its contribution to the group's business increased from 10.4% in 2022 to 20.3%.

Regarding Tang Xiaoou's sudden death, Pan Helin, co-director and researcher of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of Zhejiang University International Business School, said in an interview with the reporter of "Daily Economic News": "Professor Tang's main achievement is to improve the accuracy of face recognition to 99.55% through the DeepID algorithm, and his students are also talented, such as He Kaiming, who invented the deep residual network, so Professor Tang is not only the leader of SenseTime, but also the founder and pioneer of China's AI technology." Today, Chinese AI talents are abundant, and although Professor Tang's death is regrettable, it will not hinder the development of SenseTime's technology and business. ”

Li Mingshun, Chairman of Xingxing AI, Founder of Shunfu Capital, and Executive Team Leader of the AI Application Working Group of the Industrial Culture Development Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that Tang Xiaoou, Chairman of SenseTime, has passed away, which is a great pity and regret! He is the predecessor and important promoter of the previous generation of AI industry applications, and is also a typical representative of scientists to start AI! Their efforts have achieved remarkable results, but at the same time, there are also huge regrets, especially in the commercialization of AI, the previous generation of "AI Four Little Dragons" There are huge problems in breaking the situation, especially in the era of AI large models, the technology base is gradually equalized, and the barriers created by the previous generation of AI companies are likely to be overtaken by the new generation of technology corners, but the advantage is that all the previous accumulation and experience will allow the new generation of AI entrepreneurs to have more lessons and experience accumulation, and the new generation of AI application entrepreneurs driven by the scene will inevitably have successors, inherit the legacy and expectations of their predecessors, and push the AI upgrade of all walks of life in China to a new height!

National Business Daily