China’s leading artificial intelligence firm SenseTime’s founder and influential computer scientist Tang Xiao’ou died at the age of 51, said the company, in a statement on Saturday (Dec 16).
“It is with an extremely heavy heart that we announce to everyone the sorrowful news: Our beloved founder… Tang Xiao’ou, due to an illness that could not be treated, left us forever at 23:45 on December 15, 2023,” said SenseTime, in an online post.
Tang, who was an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was appointed as a former professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, established SenseTime in 2014.
The specific reason behind the death of a renowned computer scientist has not been revealed.
Hailing Tang in its statement on Saturday (Dec 16), SenseTime said that he was “an outstanding representative in (China’s) AI field”, and called him “knowledgeable, rigorous in scholarship, truth-seeking and pragmatic”.
“The company mission he formulated, to ‘insist on originality and let AI lead human progress’ will inspire all SenseTime people,” the firm stated. As a “pioneer in China’s AI industry”, Tang will continue to remain as an inspiration for others, said the company.
Revenue fabrication row, US trade blacklist
On November 28, SenseTime Group – after getting involved in revenue fabrication row – said that Grizzly Research LLC’s short-seller report is ‘without merit’ and that they will review the allegations against the company.
The report alleged that the AI firm was inflating its revenue artificially through revenue fabrication schemes.
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Meanwhile, in 2019, SenseTime was placed on a US trade blacklist and faced accusations of being an arm of China’s “military-industrial complex” and using its technology to carry out mass surveillance in the western region of Xinjiang.
In December 2021, the initial public offering of the firm in Hong Kong was delayed after it faced new restrictions by the United States over the related accusations. However, it was able to successfully list on the exchange before the end of the year.
Tang’s experience is extensive in American academia and he earned a PhD from MIT in 1996 after he completed an MSc from the University of Rochester in 1991.
(With inputs from agencies)
