Chinese AI company SenseTime Group has experienced a surge in its share price after announcing the launch of its updated large language model (LLM), SenseNova. The company claims that the new model is on par with OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo, a significant achievement in the field of artificial intelligence. SenseTime’s stock trading was temporarily halted as its share price soared by more than 30% in response to the news.
The company’s co-founder, chairman, and CEO, Xu Li, introduced the latest advances in SenseNova at the firm’s Tech Day event. Xu highlighted the technology’s three-tier architecture, focusing on knowledge, reasoning, and execution. By increasing the LLM’s parameter count, SenseTime aims to enhance its learning and generalisation capacity.
The 5.0 version of SenseNova, which debuted in April 2023, boasts major advancements in areas such as knowledge, mathematics, reasoning, and coding capabilities. The updated model excels in comprehension, summarisation, and question-and-answer tasks, making it suitable for applications in education, content industries, finance, and data analysis. SenseNova 5.0 also features support for high-definition image parsing, text-to-image generation, and complex data extraction and summarisation.
SenseTime’s LLM has undergone extensive training, with over 10 terabytes of token training and coverage of large amounts of synthetic data. This training has significantly expanded the model’s context window coverage, enabling it to process and understand large volumes of text during conversations with users.
According to Xu, the market for device-based LLMs is expected to experience exponential growth as more AI-enabled personal computers, smartphones, and smart cars become available. SenseTime is one of China’s leading AI companies, known for its advanced facial recognition technology. Alongside Megvii, Cloudwalk Technology, and Yitu Technology, SenseTime is on the Entity List that restricts their access to US technologies and suppliers.
SenseTime’s path to commercial viability has been challenging due to US sanctions, leading the company to restructure its operations. In 2023, SenseTime reported losses of 6.5 billion yuan ($897 million) and a 10.6% decline in revenue compared to the previous year.
The surge in SenseTime’s share price reflects investors' enthusiasm for large language models in China. With over 200 domestic-developed AI models in the market, Chinese companies are striving to catch up with advancements made by OpenAI and Google. SenseTime’s latest achievements position it as a formidable player in the AI landscape, and the company’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of their technology ensures that they remain at the forefront of innovation.
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