China’s AI unicorns aim to reduce reliance on government surveillance business

SenseTime and Megvii, the most valuable Chinese AI unicorns worth US$7.5bil and US$4bil respectively, were added to the US Entity List in October last year. In 2019, surveillance was the biggest single end-use for AI in China, accounting for 53.8% of all AI-powered applications. — SCMP

When Chinese AI unicorns SenseTime, Megvii and Yitu were sanctioned by the US in October last year, it looked like a major threat to the survival of their business.

Yet the supply chain impact of being added to Washington’s Entity List, which restricted their access to American products, has been less significant than originally feared. In fact, it was quickly overshadowed by the need to diversify a business model overly reliant on government orders for surveillance cameras in a market that has since become saturated.