Rising Chinese AI star Megvii gets caught in the US-China tech war

Megvii's technology has helped China's Ministry of Public Security make more than 5,000 arrests of fugitives since 2016.

Yin Qi started Megvii eight years ago in Beijing’s Zhongguancun tech hub, along with two of his classmates from Tsinghua University, with the goal of making the world a better place.

Today, the facial recognition algorithms developed by the Beijing-based start-up, which previously also went by the trade name Face++, have made it the world’s biggest provider of third-party authentication software. Its technology is widely used in China to unlock smartphones, make mobile payments, and verify identities at banks, train stations and airports.