SHARES in Chinese artificial intelligence start-up SenseTime jumped by as much as 23% on its Hong Kong debut today despite the company being blacklisted by the United States over accusations of aiding genocide in Xinjiang.

The company pulled an initial listing earlier this month after the US Treasury announced sanctions, saying SenseTime was part of China’s “military-industrial complex” that provides technology for mass surveillance in the northwestern Chinese province.

Washington said SenseTime’s facial recognition software, which can determine a person’s ethnicity, was designed in part to be used against Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

SenseTime filed a revised listing on December 20 with the Hong Kong stock exchange, after dismissing the accusations as unfounded and saying the company was “caught in the middle of geopolitical tension”.

It raised HK$5.78 billion (RM3.09 billion) selling 1.5 billion shares at HK$3.85 per share, the bottom of its price range, according to Bloomberg.

SenseTime shares this morning rose as high as HK$4.74.

The sale boosted the wealth of the company’s co-founder Tang Xiao’ou, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology alum’s wealth jumping by US$500 million (RM2 billion) to roughly US$3.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

It is the last major listing this year on Hong Kong’s bourse, which has underperformed in recent months as a number of large Chinese listings have been pulled or delayed.

SenseTime earlier secured about US$512 million from nine cornerstone investors, including state-backed Mixed-Ownership Reform Fund and Shanghai Xuhui Capital Investment Company, Bloomberg reported.

The plight of the Uighurs has contributed to worsening diplomatic relations between Western powers and Beijing, and has ensnared international businesses as both sides impose sanctions.

UN experts and researchers estimate more than one million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in prison camps in Xinjiang.

Human rights groups and foreign governments have found evidence of what they say are mass detentions, forced labour, political indoctrination, torture and forced sterilisation.

Washington has described it as genocide.

After initially denying the existence of the Xinjiang camps, China later defended them as vocational training centres aimed at reducing the appeal of Islamic extremism.

Hong Kong finance chief Paul Chan, who attended today’s livestreamed listing ceremony, said the company “was subjected to unjustified interference by a foreign government shortly before its listing, an attempt to obstruct the progress of its IPO”.

“But, for the strong, difficulties and hardships are just ornaments for their success story,” he added. – AFP, December 30, 2021.