Uyghurs: on American blacklist, Chinese SenseTime goes public in Hong Kong

A welcome message for the Chinese artificial intelligence start-up SenseTime after its initial public offering in Hong Kong on December 30, 2021. Bertha Wang AFP

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1 min

In Hong Kong, the IPO of SenseTime, the Chinese artificial intelligence specialist, met with huge success despite being blacklisted by the United States, which prevents banks or American nationals from investing in the securities of these companies. 

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With our correspondent in Hong Kong, 

SenseTime's IPO had to be postponed two weeks after the US Treasury blacklisted SenseTime.

Washington accuses the Chinese leader in facial recognition for having developed a technology to specifically identify members of the Uyghur ethnic group in China, and thus serve as police surveillance in Xinjiang. 

It is impossible to travel freely in this region where China is widely 

the Muslim Uyghur population on a very large scale with the aim of forcibly integrating it into the Chinese population. 

The United States calls the situation in Xinjiang genocide and has blacklisted more than 20 Chinese companies in connection with their activities in Xinjiang.

SenseTime had spoken of "

" and complained of paying the price for geopolitical tensions.

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650 million euros raised

Investors in Hong Kong did not appear to have concerns about human rights in China.

They pounced on SenseTime, which jumped 23% when the market opened.

In a few minutes, 300 million dollars thus came to swell the fortune of its founder Tang Xiao'ou, former professor of engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).

In total, SenseTime managed to raise 5.8 billion Hong Kong dollars, or 650 million euros.

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