Yitu Technology

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“…Building a safer, smarter and healthier world”
Founded:January 2012, Shanghai, China

Category: Artificial Intelligence

Primary office: Shanghai, China

Core technical team:Shanghai, China, and an R&D lab in Singapore

Status: Private

Employees: 501-1000

Amount raised: USD$411.8 million(12 rounds – March 2020)

 OVERVIEW

  • Yitu Technology carries out pioneering work in vision computing, developing algorithms recognized by international organizations, and applying them to address specific local and industry needs in China, Singapore, and Southeast Asia.
  • Offers AI-based solutions for security, finance, healthcare, retail businesses, and intelligent cities.
  • Distinct competences include: (1) Facial recognition and security, (2) natural language and speech processing technologies for commercial applications, (3) optimization of computer vision methods for medical diagnostics, and (4) artificial intelligence chips
  • Origin and evolution:
    • Leo Zhu, a highly regarded AI scientist, and Lin Chenxi, team leader for Alibaba Cloud,  co-founded YITU Technology in 2012
    • Yitu Technologywas acquired by Gaorong Capital on Jun 27, 2014
    • In 2015, the China Merchants Bank deployed Yitu’s smart banking solution at its 1,500 outlets in China and Yitu worked with Alibaba Cloud to build a cloud platform for transportation management.
    • In 2016, Yitu’s intelligent assistant diagnostic products for computed tomography of the chest was adopted by several top ranked hospitals in China
    • In 2017, Yitu established its R&D centre in Singapore; invested in ThinkForce, an AI chip maker; and AcctarBio, an AI pharmaceutical company; and launched its care.ai products
    • In 2018, Yitu launched its open platform for speech recognition, the world’s first intelligent disease database for clinical research in lung cancer, and the world’s first multidisciplinary intelligent diagnostic system for lung cancer
    • In 2019, launched the world’s first cloud vision inference chip
    • In 2020, set a new world record in Person Re-identification Ranking, taking its algorithm to a higher level
  • Company is known for its computer vision and machine learning capabilities as well as its facial recognition software

PERFORMANCE METRICS

  • Valuation: USD$2.37billion (March 2020)
  • Estimated Revenue: N/A

ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Yitu became the first AI company in China to receive the ISO/IEC 27701:2019 certification from the British Standards Institution (BSI) for its privacy information management system (June 2020)
  • Yitu was included as one of CNBC Disruptor/50 (June 2019)
  • Only Chinese company to win first place in the Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) (organized by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology)
  • Won first place in the VoxCeleb Speaker Recognition Challenge (2019)
  • Won the super AI Leader (SAIL) Award for Innovation (2018)
  • Technology was being used in more than 20 provincial public security bureaus in over 300 cities in China (2018)

Sells

  • Security solutions: Face, image, and voice recognition technology that can be deployed at airports, bus stations, and residential complexes.
  • Healthcare total solutions: Develops intelligent disease databases, “AI + big data” research platforms, regional research data centers, and intelligent assisted diagnosis systems and other solutions for clinic, teaching, research, and management operators.
  • Intelligent business: Integrated hardware-software and modulated AI solutions for services offered by financial companies, customer services delivered by retail stores, and automated teller machines operated by banks.
  • Intelligent cities: Ultra-large-scale intelligent operation and management technologies for municipal government departments responsible for city planning, urban life, city services, and city management.

Channels

  • Channel Partners: Establishes partnerships to explore the promising future of AI together
  • Publications: CEO and staff publish papers on professional journals such as PAMI, IJCV, NIPS, AISTATS and CVPR.
  • Competitions: Company teams compete internationally. These teams have won world titles in many competitions, including ACM, PASCAL VOC, IOI, and FRVT, as well as the nomination for best paper at the ACM CHI conference.

Competencies

  • AI: Integrates advances in the fields of computer vision, speech recognition, semantic comprehension, intelligent decision, and AI chips to develop applications in security, health care solutions, intelligent businesses, and intelligent cities. Company has developed technology that can accurately identify individuals from a database of one billion people in just one second
  • Global: Adapts to requirements in China, Singapore, and South East Asia.

Distinct AI Features

Type

  • See AI use

  AI use

  • Leverages the main applied sciences to develop AI applications. The applied sciences include, (1) computer vision solutions, (2) speech recognition, (3) algorithms, (4) human-computer interactions, (5) big data platforms, and (6) chip infrastructure.
  • Provides a customer support desk

AI useRate of return on customer’s investment to make AI work

Databases

  • N/A

Quantum Computing

  • N/A

Resources

Assets

  • Full stack of AI core technologies
  • World’s first cloud vision intelligent chip, Questcore™
  • R&D groups in China and Singapore
  • Relationships with venture capital firms
  • Various awards for advancing AI technology

Processes

  • Process that combines algorithm development and chip design

Priorities

  • Strengthen YITU’s advantages in basic AI theory and novel algorithm development
  • Commercialize applications of company’s technologies
  • Extend hardware/software integration solutions to wider applications with competitive costs and efficiency

References

  1. Bloomberg. 2019. AI Startup Yitu Seeks IPO on China’s New Tech Board. CaixinGlobal. https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-09-04/ai-startup-yitu-seeks-ipo-on-chinas-new-tech-board-101458551.html
  2. CrunchBase. 2020. Yitu Technology. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/yitu-technology
  3. Sirui, Z. 2019.  10 Companies Join China’s National Open Platform for Next Generation AI. EqualOcesn. https://equalocean.com/news/2019082911628
  4. Udemans, C. 2018. Yitu Technology announces $200 million funding. technode. https://technode.com/2018/06/12/yitu-funding/
  5. Yi, H. 2019. Yitu Clarifies STAR Market IPO News. EqualOcean. https://equalocean.com/news/2019090411654
  6. Yitu Technology. 2020. Website.https://www.yitutech.com/cn
  7. YITU Technology. 2019. Dr. Yan Shuicheng Joins YITU Technology as CTO. PR Newswire. https://en.prnasia.com/releases/apac/dr-yan-shuicheng-joins-yitu-technology-as-cto-253285.shtml

Contributors

  • Tony Bailetti

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