HONG KONG : Chinese artificial intelligence start-up SenseTime Group relaunched its US$767 million Hong Kong IPO on Monday, a week after pulling the listing in the wake of the company's inclusion on a U.S. investment blacklist.
However, it will now rely on cornerstone investors to buy about US$511 million, or around 67per cent, of shares, up from US$450 million, or 58per cent, of shares previously. The U.S. Treasury added SenseTime to a list of"Chinese military-industrial complex companies" on Dec. 10, accusing it of having developed a facial recognition programme to determine a target's ethnicity, with a focus on identifying ethnic Uyghurs.
Some foreign lawmakers and parliaments have labelled the treatment of Uyghurs as genocide, citing evidence of forced sterilisations and deaths inside the camps. China denies these claims and says Uyghur population growth rates are above the national average.