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• SenseTime postponed its Hong Kong IPO worth $767 million
• Washington categorized the AI firm as one of the "Chinese military-industrial complex companies”
Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company, SenseTime, postponed its Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) worth $767 million, on Monday, after being placed on a U.S. investment blacklist.
Washington categorized SenseTime as one of the "Chinese military-industrial complex companies. The US Treasury Department placed the firm along with 25 other individuals and entities on a list that bans U.S. citizens from investing in companies that support Chinese military development.
The U.S. Treasury Department said that the listed entities were connected to “human rights abuse and repression in several countries around the globe”.
The department pointed out the role of the facial recognition technologies developed by the AI firm in enabling human rights abuses against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. These accusations have been strongly denied by SenseTime.
SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund, Qualcomm Inc., and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. are a few of the big names among the start-up’s many shareholders.
SenseTime had initially aimed to raise to $2 billion in its IPO but scaled it down after China’s intensified its crackdown on tech companies while the U.S. expanded its economic blacklist to include more Chinese companies.
SenseTime filed to list its IPO on the Hong Kong stock exchange on December 17. The company had reasoned that it couldn’t predict the impact of the draft measures, if any, at that stage, and would monitor and assess any development in the rule-making process, in the stock exchange filing back in August.