SenseTime CEO on IPO, Regulations
Chinese artificial intelligence giant SenseTime debuts today. Bloomberg spoke to CEO Xu Li in early December, prior to sanctions from the Biden administration, and discussed the company's business strategies.
Cofounder, Sensetime
Search every verified Bing Xu interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote โ each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a December 2021 interview prior to SenseTime's Hong Kong IPO, CEO Xu Li discussed the company's use of proceeds, regulatory environment, and international expansion. Xu stated that 60% of the IPO capital would be invested in research and development, specifically to build an artificial intelligence algorithm center for mass-producing AI models and reducing costs. He described this as a "more fundamental but more difficult path" and said the company was already seeing scaled effects from its investments in R&D talent and infrastructure. Xu also expressed confidence in a "very clear path to achieving profitability for the next few years." Regarding regulation, Xu argued that "timely interactive regulation" benefits emerging industries, warning that premature rules may not reflect technological boundaries, while late regulation can be painful. He advocated for "agility" and "immediacy" in regulation, with companies engaging academics and regulators. On data security, Xu said SenseTime prioritizes the issue and believes technology providers should understand safe data processing, calling for industry standards. Addressing U.S. sanctions, Xu stated the entity list "has no basis" but acknowledged it "hurts our overall plan and development for international expansion," requiring additional communication to comply with export controls.
“We would like to invest the proceeds from this Hong Kong IPO in infrastructure and R&D in artificial intelligence.”
“Sixty percent of the capital raised in this IPO will be spent in research and development to build up an infrastructure called an artificial intelligence algorithm center which will be used for mass production of AI models.”
“The production cost for technology is the key factor in commercializing it โ the second phase of industrialization is to reduce the cost to a lower level so it can be used in all kinds of scenarios in our daily lives.”
“We chose a more fundamental but more difficult path by investing in AI infrastructure at an early stage; this investment including investing in R&D talent accounted for a large portion of our R&D expense, and we are already seeing the scaled effect from our investments.”
Chinese artificial intelligence giant SenseTime debuts today. Bloomberg spoke to CEO Xu Li in early December, prior to sanctions from the Biden administration, and discussed the company's business strategies.
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