Tang Xiao’ou, the billionaire founder of Hong Kong-listed Chinese artificial intelligence giant SenseTime, died late on Friday, the company said in a statement on Saturday. He was 55 years old.
Tang, who is also an information engineering professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, died of an unspecified illness, SenseTime said in the statement.
At the time of his death, Tang had a net worth of $1.1 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time wealth tracker, based on his stake in SenseTime. He debuted on the Hong Kong’s 50 Richest list in 2022 at No. 16 with a net worth of $6 billion. In the latest ranking, published in February, Tang was No. 33 on the list with a net worth of $2.5 billion, as shares of his AI company fell.
The professor billionaire founded SenseTime in 2014 and served as an executive director. SenseTime’s creation began with Tang’s Ph.D. in computer vision from MIT in 1996, which led to a teaching post at Chinese University of Hong Kong. Busy in the same engineering department there was Xu Li, en route to his own doctorate in computer vision and imaging in 2010.
At the Shanghai-based company, he was responsible for innovation and research strategies, including driving partnerships with universities and academic institutions. The daily management of SenseTime largely lies with Xu, its 41-year-old chairman and CEO.
The company, however, has been struggling in recent years. After its initial public offering in December 2021—a highly anticipated event at the time despite being added to a U.S. blacklist—investor enthusiasm has been fading amid slower growth prospects. The company was added to a U.S. trade blacklist in 2019 and faced restrictions in accessing American supplies and technology. The U.S. alleged the company’s technology helps Beijing monitor ethnic Uyghurs in China; SenseTime has previously rejected such accusations.
In the first half of 2023, revenues grew just 1.3% year-on-year to 1.4 billion yuan ($202 million)—a far cry from the almost 100% growth seen just a couple years ago—while losses stood at $443.8 million after including fair value changes of certain preferred shares and financial liabilities.
The company managed to sell more of its AI-based software and analytics tools to businesses, but growth was offset by the plunge in revenues from clients such as those in the auto sector and government-related departments. Two of its early backers—Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and Japanese tech investment giant SoftBank—have also been trimming their stakes.
SenseTime, in the meantime, was attacked by a short seller. U.S.-based Grizzly Research said in a November report that the company was inflating revenues through a scheme called round-tripping, where it allegedly paid other companies to purchase products from SenseTime.
The AI company said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange that the report is “without merit and contains unfounded allegations and misleading conclusions and interpretations.” Its stock has plunged more than 40% so far this year, and almost 80% since its IPO.