SenseTime is set to begin trading on December 17, the filing said, and according to the issue price range, the company's market value could exceed HK$100 billion after the listing, making it the largest AI unicorn in the Hong Kong market.
AI is likely to be the next target of the US crackdown on Chinese technology because AI is a technological system that combines big data and chips. SenseTime, as a leading AI company in China, has implemented solutions in many key industries, Beijing-based independent tech analyst Liu Dingding said on Friday.
" There are still problems, including the cold war in business, that cannot be ignored ," Dong Shaopeng, an expert consultant at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, told Global Time on Friday.
Founded in 2014, SenseTime specializes in computer vision namibia telegram number database technologies and deep learning algorithms. The company has received several rounds of funding from leading institutions such as Alibaba, IDG, and CDH Investments.
According to the company's prospectus, over the past three and a half years, SenseTime's revenue has increased from RMB 1.85 billion (US$290 million) in 2018 to RMB 3.44 billion in 2020, achieving a compound annual growth rate of 36.4 percent. Meanwhile, in the first half of 2021, the company's revenue was RMB 1.65 billion, up 91.8 percent year-on-year.
Silver Lake, a US private equity firm that owns 3% of the company, has agreed to lock up some of its shares for six months after the IPO, the FT reported. Fidelity and Qualcomm have smaller stakes. HSBC is the only Western investment bank participating in the IPO.
While China has yet to overtake the U.S. in terms of core technologies like chips and operating systems, artificial intelligence has already been integrated into a large number of sectors of the Chinese economy, pushing the country to catch up with the U.S.
AI represents a major breakthrough in China's technological competition with the United States and is the reason the United States will focus on clamping down on Chinese AI companies, Liu said, saying he could not rule out the possibility that the United States would seek to restrict more Chinese AI companies