SenseTime Gathers Global Innovators to Explore an AI-Powered Future

Shanghai, July 10, 2020– SenseTime, a leading global artificial intelligence (AI) company, hosted an industry forum themed, "AI+: Innovate for a Better Tomorrow" onsite and online at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2020 today. Prominent scholars and industry leaders from all over the world attended the forum to share their views and vision on how AI technology is empowering various industries to transform and create a better future. Co-founder and CEO of SenseTime, Xu Li, also announced a strategic upgrade of its open source framework, OpenMMLab, during the forum.

OpenMMLab was established in 2018 by the Multimedia Lab (MMLab), a joint laboratory between SenseTime and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, aiming to promote academic exchange and improve reproducibility of algorithms. Over the past two years, the popularity of OpenMMLab has grown among AI researchers as many algorithms and AI toolboxes on this platform are made freely available. It is expected that after the upgrade, the platform will be able to grant public access to over one hundred algorithms and 600 pre-trained models that cover over ten research directions.

"Technology should not be limited to serving the head only but must be focused on solving the many under-represented problems that can emerge under the long tail." said Xu Li at his keynote speech. "AI-driven innovations have undoubtedly played an important role in addressing issues across various industries. But now it is up to us to realize the problems in our daily lives and find solutions to them, so that technology can transform and improve our lives for the better."

Another highlight of the forum was a panel discussion on AI and eSports. Zhou Hang, an 8-time championship of StarCraft II in China, now working as a researcher at SenseTime, shared his insights on the influence of AI on eSports. A panel of highly talented researchers and champions of eSports and Jiangsu TV’s Super Brain gathered to discuss various topics including the similarities and differences between the human brain and machine in decision-making, and the critical role of decision making in machine learning. 

Guest speakers and presenters attending the conference virtually this year, can make use of SenseTime's "AI Background Assistance" tool. It is essentially a real-time image segmentation software that automatically segments a speaker's image from his or her background, and replaces the background with key images to unify the video played or projects the speaker as a hologram.  To enrich the conference experience for both physical and virtual attendees, guest speakers such as Jack Ma, Stephen Schwarzman, Christin Klein and Cristiano Amon, attending the conference virtually appeared on stage as a hologram.

SenseTime also deployed its Digital Human technology at the WAIC 2020 conference hall. Integrating computer vision and natural language processing technologies, the digital human guide interacts and takes the visitors through a tour to introduce the achievements of AI-enabled products in various industries.

Distinguished guest speakers from academia, industry and government agencies shared their views virtually, including Eric Grimson, Chancellor for Academic Advancement at MIT; Takeo Kanade, U. A. and Helen Whitaker University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Member of National Academy of Engineering; Chen Jie, Academician, Chinese Academy of Engineering, President of Tongji University. Delivering a remark at the forum, H.E. Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence of the UAE, addressed the importance of developing AI responsibly to ensure that all generations will benefit from the decision made today. Meanwhile, Kiren Kumar, Executive Vice President of the Singapore Economic Development Board and Assistant Chief Executive of Info-comm Media Development Authority, also emphasized the ethical and responsible use of AI, so that the technology can be trusted and beneficial to the society.