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This state-backed AI unicorn has helped Chinese police arrest 10,000 criminals

  • Initially focused on finance, Cloudwalk grew into the biggest AI supplier to Chinese banks, which use its facial recognition technology in ATMs

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A man demonstrates the facial recognition technology by Cloudwalk. Photo: Handout

Hunting down a fugitive in a country with 1.4 billion people can be an uphill struggle.

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But China’s law enforcement agencies now have a helping hand thanks to a crop of artificial intelligence firms that employ facial recognition technology to help find the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Guangzhou-based start-up Cloudwalk is one of them.

State-backed Cloudwalk’s facial recognition technology has assisted Chinese police with over 10,000 arrests in the past four years, the company said in a statement, and has been deployed by over 29 provinces across China. It makes over 1 billion comparisons of faces against its database each day and has accumulated more than 100 billion data points.

The company also set up a joint video analytics research lab under the Ministry of Public Security in July to enhance collaboration on technology products for use by the police.

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Cloudwalk, along with competitor AI start-ups such as SenseTime Group and Megvii, are helping to power the country’s massive surveillance network. China’s Skynet Project, a national system aimed at “fighting crime and preventing possible disasters”, according to the authorities, had more than 20 million cameras installed in public spaces in Chinese cities in 2017, while the Sharp Eye Project has extended the watch to rural areas across China, according to state media.

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