Chinese AI firms look to foray into South Asia

Chinese face recognition technology firms look to expand their business in South Asian countries including Bangladesh following the omnipresence of the tech across China.
Chinese public and private firms have created a surveillance system by using face recognition software across the country which has also been becoming an integral part of state security systems day by day.
Facial recognition systems are biometric computer applications which automatically identify an individual from a database of digital images. The systems are now being used extensively in areas such as public security, financial services and transport across the country.
Many Chinese companies have already staked a claim for this growing market where their products and services are used by organisations in both the public and private sectors.
A number of Chinese firms have recently posted advertisements in different groups of China's popular social media WeChat looking for Bangladeshi faces along with India, Pakistan and Nepal.
According to one of these advertisements posted last month, one Pakistani student was looking for 50 persons from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal for facial recognition test.
"Interested persons will be paid 80 RMB for 40 minutes," the ad said.
When contacted, Pakistani student Belal Ahmed said he was working for a company to do the test, but he refused to disclose the company's name and other details.
Belal told the FE that he did such facial recognition tests for other nations on behalf of a top company.
"Five Bangladeshi students from different universities in Beijing participated in that recognition tests after the advertisement was posted," he said.
Olivia Geng, a top official of Megvii Technology, one of the top artificial intelligence firms in China, said they planned to expand their business in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries.
Megvii's technology is used by the Ministry of Public Security of China which oversees a facial scan database of more than 1.3 billion people in China. It's an innovation that has helped China's police force arrest more than 4,000 people since 2016.
"We are ready to provide such surveillance systems to BRI countries," she said.
The Chinese government also does such test to create database for all races and nations, according to sector insiders.
It is working to create a techno-controlled state powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition to track and monitor its 1.4 billion citizens, according to Chinese media reports.
The government has big plans to have a ubiquitous surveillance network, leading the country to becoming the biggest market in the world for video surveillance -- $6.4 billion in 2016, according to estimates from IHS Markit Ltd.
China has 170 million security cameras in use for its Skynet surveillance system, with 400 million more on the way in the coming years.
Facial recognition technology is just a small part of the artificial intelligence industry that China wants to pioneer.
According to a report by CB Insights, AI patents were applied for in China were five times the figure in the US in 2017.And for the first time, China's AI scene gained more investment than that of the US last year. Of every available dollar going to AI startups around the world, nearly a half went to companies in China.
The global facial recognition market is forecast to be worth US$6.5 billion by 2021, up from US$2.3 billion in 2016, according to the latest estimates from research company Technavio.

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