Engineering Professor Debuts On Hong Kong’s 50 Richest After His AI Startup’s Red-Hot IPO

This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of Hong Kong’s Richest 2022. See the full list here.

The growing appetite for AI stocks fueled the red-hot market debut of Shanghai-based smart-tech pioneer SenseTime and propelled cofounder Tang Xiao’ou onto the list for the first time with a $6 billion fortune. SenseTime—the first of China’s AI companies to list—had its $740 million IPO in Hong Kong in December.

Investors like SenseTime stock’s prospects due to the scarcity of AI stocks in Asia, says Ke Yan, head of research at Singapore-based DZT Research. The strong performance, however, comes under the shadow of U.S. sanctions against the company over its face-recognition software that Washington alleges helps Beijing monitor ethnic Uyghurs in China. The company in a statement on its website strongly rejects the accusations.

The move should have little impact on sales growth, says Ke. In the first half of 2021, SenseTime generated 1.7 billion yuan ($260 million) in sales, up 92% from a year earlier. But the company has yet to turn a profit, with losses standing at $581 million amid heavy R&D spending. About half of its revenue came from the Chinese government, which deploys its technology in a range of areas, from healthcare to traffic management.

Tang, SenseTime’s largest shareholder and executive director, continues to teach at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The 54-year-old information engineering professor (who got his doctorate from MIT) cofounded the company in 2014 with two students, raising $5.2 billion from investors over 12 funding rounds. The company says it plans to use the bulk of the IPO money to improve computing power, AI chip design and new products. It recently launched an AI data center in Shanghai that’s expected to become one of the largest in Asia. The supercomputer infrastructure, it says, will help the firm scale up.