On the evening of December 16, a sudden obituary shook the AI industry.
Tang Xiaoou, founder of SenseTime, artificial intelligence scientist, director of Pujiang Laboratory, director of Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and professor of Chinese University of Hong Kong, passed away at 23:45 on December 15, 2023 at the age of 55 due to ineffective treatment.
SenseTime's official WeChat account announced on December 17 that the farewell ceremony for Professor Tang Xiaoou's body is scheduled to be held at 10:30 a.m. on December 19, 2023 (Tuesday) in the lobby of Shanghai Longhua Funeral Home (No. 210 Caoxi Road, Xuhui District).
At the same time, a memorial service will be held from 10:30 to 21:00 on 19 December 2023 (Tuesday) at the Hong Kong Science Park (Grand Exhibition Hall, 12th Floor, Building 12W, 12 Science Avenue West), Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, for friends from all walks of life in Hong Kong to pay their respects.
When the bad news came, almost the entire Chinese AI circle mourned the respectable teacher Tang. Xu Li, CEO of SenseTime, Ma Kun, co-founder of SenseTime, etc., said goodbye to the deceased teacher in the circle of friends: We have the best time when we meet you. Another staff member of SenseTime, who did not want to be named, expressed his condolences to the reporter of Nandu Bay Finance Society, saying that the "black sheep culture" advocated by it was the most impressive point for employees. In the future, under this guidance, we will continue to complete Mr. Tang's unfinished business.
Tang Xiaoou's sudden death is regrettable and sad, but also triggers a chain reaction in the secondary market. As of the close of trading on December 18, SenseTime (00020. HK) shares fell 11.11% to HK$1.12 per share, and the market capitalization fell to HK$37.49 billion.
China's AI leader, creating a new era of face recognition technology
Born in Anshan, Liaoning Province in 1968, Tang Xiaoou is the vice president of the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a professor at the University of Hong Kong Chinese, and the director of the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and was elected a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2009.
According to public information, he graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1990 and received a master's degree from the University of Rochester in August 1991. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 and has been teaching at the University of Chinese Hong Kong since January 1998. In 2008, he worked as a director and researcher in the Multimedia Integration Technology Laboratory of the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Since January 2009, he has served as the vice president of the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In the industry and academia, Tang Xiaoou has multiple identities. In 2009, Tang Xiaoou was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. In addition, he has served as the Chair of the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) and the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), and has been a director of the Hong Kong Artificial Intelligence and Data Lab since May 2018 and has been in charge of the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Innovation Center since August 2020. He was also a director of Khazanah Nasional and Hong Kong Science Park Corporation from June 2019 to April 2020 and July 2018 to March 2021 respectively. In 2020, Tang Xiaoou was named one of the top five computer scientists in Asia by Guide2Research.
As the founder of SenseTime, Tang Xiaoou has not only made outstanding achievements in technological innovation, but also actively promoted the development of the artificial intelligence industry, which has had a profound impact on China's scientific and technological innovation.
Among them, Tang Xiaoou's contribution to the field of face recognition is particularly significant. In 2014, his team released the GaussianFace face recognition algorithm, which achieved an accuracy rate of 98.52% on the LFW database, surpassing the human eye recognition capability for the first time. Subsequently, through the DeepID series of algorithms published in its laboratory, the accuracy rate of face recognition has gradually increased to 99.55%, leading the practical application of technology in the entire face recognition industry.
Not only that, Tang Xiaoou also applied this technology to daily life, and the story of "the first name in the world" was widely spread among employees. In 2003, Tang Xiaoou's son Tang Zhiming was born in Hong Kong and returned to Beijing with his mother six months later. Tang Xiaoou wrote in his autobiography, "I always feel that I have too little time with Mingming, and I want to record every minute, so I take a lot of photos." So I selfishly called on everyone to do research on photo management." As a result, Photo Tagging was born, which can quickly organize photos with the same characteristics in thousands of photos.
In 2010, Tang Xiaoou gave a lecture on "Finding Light from the Dark Primary Colors" at the University of Science and Technology of China
In addition, Tang Xiaoou has served as the editor-in-chief of the international journal International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV) and the chairman of the International Computer Vision Conference. These identities not only demonstrate Tang Xiaoou's profound academic attainments, but also demonstrate his outstanding contributions to the development of the discipline.
The "leader" fell in a difficult moment: where will tens of billions of SenseTime technology go in the future?
Another well-known achievement of Tang Xiaoou is the establishment of SenseTime, which enjoys the reputation of "the first of the four AI tigers".
On December 30, 2021, SenseTime officially landed on the Hong Kong stock market, and after the opening of the market on the first day, the stock price rose by more than 22%. After that, it rose for four consecutive days, more than tripling the issue price, and the total market value exceeded HK$230 billion. At that time, Tang Xiaoou, who held 21.73% of the shares, had a net worth of more than 30 billion Hong Kong dollars.
With the passing of Tang Xiaoou, what should the future of SenseTime be?
According to public information, SenseTime Technology was jointly established by Tang Xiaoou and his students Xu Li, Xu Bing, and Wang Xiaogang, and is known as the "first of the four AI tigers" in the industry, and it is also the first company among the four tigers to be successfully listed.
However, in the AI industry, which requires heavy investment, SenseTime's performance is not impressive. According to the financial report, as of now, SenseTime has not yet achieved profitability. From 2018 to the first half of 2023, SenseTime's revenue was 1.853 billion yuan, 3.027 billion yuan, 3.446 billion yuan, 4.7 billion yuan, 3.809 billion yuan, and 1.433 billion yuan respectively, but the net loss was as high as 3.428 billion yuan, 4.963 billion yuan, 12.158 billion yuan, 17.14 billion yuan, 6.045 billion yuan, and 3.143 billion yuan respectively.
In the first half of this year, SenseTime fully promoted its generative AI business, with generative AI-related revenue increasing by 670.4% year-on-year, and its contribution increased from 10.4% in 2022 to 20.3%. In particular, the smart business segment achieved a year-on-year increase of 50.2% in revenue, accounting for 59.5% of the Group's total revenue from 40.2%. However, the smart city and smart car sectors underperformed, with revenue down 57.7% and 30.5%, respectively. At the same time, SenseTime also adjusted its R&D expenditure, with R&D spending decreasing by 12.4%.
At the same time, SenseTime also seems to be facing huge operating and financial pressure recently, the company has obviously paid more attention to reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and there are frequent news of layoffs. According to the financial report, as of June 30, 2023, SenseTime had 5,016 employees, compared with 5,943 employees in the same period last year, and 927 employees in the past year, an increase of more than 15%.
In addition, on November 28 this year, the short-selling institution Grizzly Bear released a short-selling report, pointing out that SenseTime exaggerated its revenue through revenue circulation, which also attracted industry attention. In response, SenseTime said that the report was unfounded and contained unfounded speculations and misleading conclusions and interpretations. However, SenseTime's share price was affected by the short selling report, and SenseTime's stock price fell 4.86% at the close on November 28.
It can be said that under the multiple difficulties faced recently, Tang Xiaoou's death has undoubtedly made the company worse.
As of the close of trading on December 18, SenseTime's share price fell 11.11% to HK$1.120 per share, and SenseTime's latest market capitalization was HK$37.49 billion, compared with the market value of HK$42.17 billion at the close of trading on December 15, and the market value of SenseTime Technology decreased by about HK$4.685 billion.
According to SenseTime's interim report this year, Tang Xiaoou holds 20.63% of the shares in SenseTime. After Tang Xiaoou's death, the whereabouts of equity have also become the focus of market attention.
On December 18, SenseTime announced that the company's core management team remained unchanged, and Xu Li continued to serve as the chairman. According to the rules of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the super voting rights are automatically lost and converted into ordinary voting rights upon the death of a major shareholder. Xu Li, chairman of SenseTime, Wang Xiaogang and Xu Bing, executive directors, still have normal super voting rights, and the voting rights of the three executive directors for class A shares are 15.75%, and after Tang Xiaoou's class A shares are converted into class B shares, the voting rights of class B shares held by the three executive directors are 20.60%, and the total voting rights of the above two parts of the shares are 36.35%, which is not expected to cause significant adverse changes to the company's daily management.
Written by: Nandu Bay Financial Society reporter Yan Zhaoxin Practical Xi Sheng Yang Yushi