Exclusive | Rising Chinese AI star Megvii gets caught in the US-China tech war
- Megvii among Chinese facial recognition companies reportedly being considered for US technology blacklist for role in Xinjiang surveillance
- China wants to adopt AI in all walks of life, from health care to financial services to driverless cars and robots
Yin Qi started Megvii eight years ago in Beijing’s Zhongguancun tech hub, along with two of his classmates from Tsinghua University, with the goal of making the world a better place.
Today, the facial recognition algorithms developed by the Beijing-based start-up, which previously also went by the trade name Face++, have made it the world’s biggest provider of third-party authentication software. Its technology is widely used in China to unlock smartphones, make mobile payments, and verify identities at banks, train stations and airports.
But it is its use by law enforcement agencies that has landed Megvii in the growing debate over privacy and rights of individuals to be free from public surveillance. The controversy erupted in May after Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, released a report that said Megvii was the supplier of recognition technology used by Xinjiang police in a surveillance app. China has drawn international condemnation for its treatment of Muslim minorities in the far western region. Megvii said it has no association with the app.
The South China Morning Post visited Megvii in Beijing about two weeks after the report and spoke to Yin, co-founder and chief executive of the 2,000-strong company. An office tour showed rows of adjustable standing desks and programmers staring at lines of code on their computer screens. The only sounds were the soft tapping at keyboards.
“We’re not in it for the short term or to make money or to do a start-up, rather we really want to let AI change lives for the better,” Yin said in the interview. “Our intentions are pure.”