- Tang Xiao’ou, the billionaire founder of Chinese artificial intelligence giant SenseTime, died on Friday.
- The company announced that it had succumbed to unknown “health issues”.
- He died just weeks after the company was accused of artificially inflating its revenue.
Tang Xiao’ou, the billionaire founder of Chinese artificial intelligence giant SenseTime, died on Friday of undisclosed “health issues”, according to a statement released by the partly state-owned company.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Professor Tang Xiao’ou, our beloved founder, a renowned artificial intelligence (AI) scientist, director of Pujiang Lab, director of Shanghai AI Lab, and professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Kong,” he said in a statement SenseTime released early Sunday in China. “Professor Tang passed away due to health issues on December 15, 2023 at 11:45 PM”
The obituary published by the company did not specify what kind of health problems Tang died of or whether his illness was previously known.
The controversial Chinese AI company, founded in 2014, was once the world’s most valuable AI startup, in part because of its direct connections and funding from the Chinese government. The company develops technologies including facial recognition, object detection, and video and image analysis using artificial intelligence.
Representatives for SenseTime did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Tang’s death comes just weeks after a US-based short-seller, Grizzly Research, accused the Chinese AI firm of artificially inflating its revenue, suggesting that SenseTime engaged in “highly questionable round-trip revenue schemes” in which the company directly or indirectly provided funds to customers that were used to purchase goods from SenseTime that may to have never been delivered.
“We believe that SenseTime’s core facial recognition business has become notoriously unprofitable due to intense competition and the fact that the Chinese government simply does not have a practice of awarding highly profitable contracts to majority foreign-owned businesses,” Grizzly Research said in its report. . at the end of November.
Although the company supported in a archiving to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that the report was “baseless and contains baseless allegations and misleading conclusions and interpretations”, SenseTime’s stock was nevertheless deeply affected by the allegations, falling nearly 10% after the news, bringing its total losses to more than 40% so far this year — and more than 80% since its IPO, Forbes mentionted.
At the time of his death, Tang had a net worth of $1.1 billion, made up entirely of the value of his SenseTime shares, according to Forbes.
NOW WATCH: Popular videos from Insider Inc.
Loading…