Hong Kong-listed SenseTime says generative AI will help the firm turn a profit in 2 years
- The company has set a goal of 100 per cent growth for its generative AI business this year, CEO and co-founder Xu Li told the Post in an interview
- SenseTime has explored opportunities outside its traditional AI business, including smart city and smart business solutions
SenseTime, one of China’s artificial intelligence (AI) pioneers, is aiming for profitability within the next two years as revenue from its generative AI business tripled last year, and is expected to become the company’s new profit engine, according to CEO and co-founder Xu Li.
Hong Kong-listed SenseTime reported revenue of 1.184 billion yuan (US$163.4 million) from its generative AI-related business for 2023, marking a 199.9 per cent year-on-year increase, according to its latest annual financial report.
In April last year, SenseTime launched its self-developed large language model (LLM), SenseNova, amid the explosion of LLM projects in China since Microsoft-backed OpenAI introduced innovative generative AI tools, including ChatGPT and more recently text-to-video service Sora.
“We set the goal for a 100 per cent growth of our generative AI business this year,” Xu told the South China Morning Post in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.
“But I think the actual growth of our generative AI business could be even higher, as this is a fast-growing sector,” said Xu, adding that many consumer generative AI applications were still in the investment phase last year, so the company is exploring potential business models.
SenseTime’s share price surged by over 30 per cent on April 24 when it released the latest iteration of SenseNova 5.0, which the company said was comparable with OpenAI’s GPT-Turbo model. Its generative AI business has become one of its core segments, accounting for 34.8 per cent of its total revenue.
