中國國有基金大舉投資人臉識別初創(chuàng)企業(yè)

Chinese facial recognition start-up Megvii Face++ has raised $460m in an investment round led by a government fund, as the country pours money into efforts to become an artificial intelligence superpower to rival the US.

中國企業(yè)曠視科技(Megvii)旗下的人臉識別技術(shù)平臺Face++已在一輪由一支政府基金主導(dǎo)的投資中籌資4.6億美元，中國正大舉投資于研發(fā)人工智能技術(shù)，以期在該領(lǐng)域成為與美國抗衡的超級大國。

The Beijing-based Face++ said on Wednesday that it had raised money from China State-Owned Venture Capital Fund and the China-Russian Investment Fund, which is backed by the sovereign wealth funds of both countries. Private investors including Alibaba’s payments affiliate Ant Financial also participated.

總部位于北京的Face++周三表示，他們已獲得中國國有資本風(fēng)險投資基金(China State-Owned Venture Capital Fund )及由中俄兩國主權(quán)財富基金支持的中俄投資基金(China-Russian Investment Fund)的投資。阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的支付業(yè)務(wù)關(guān)聯(lián)公司螞蟻金服(Ant Financial)等私人投資者也參與了投資。

Face++, which had a valuation of Rmb10bn ($1.5bn) before its recent round of investment, declined to reveal its post-fundraising valuation.

在最近一輪投資前，F(xiàn)ace++的估值為100億元人民幣(合15億美元)，該公司拒絕透露其在本輪籌資后的估值。

The company is benefiting from a plan laid out this year by China’s State Council to become the world’s unchallenged leader in AI research and applications by 2030, and a subsequent push by government-run venture capital funds to support domestic start-ups.

該公司得益于中國國務(wù)院今年出臺的一項計劃，即到2030年成為人工智能研究與應(yīng)用領(lǐng)域的世界絕對領(lǐng)先者，也得益于由政府運營的風(fēng)投基金隨后對國內(nèi)初創(chuàng)企業(yè)的大力支持。

According to KPMG, the government has invested more than $1bn to date in early-stage funding for young start-ups.

畢馬威(KPMG)表示，迄今為止，中國政府已為年輕的初創(chuàng)企業(yè)提供了超過10億美元的前期資金。

“Investment from the ‘national team’ [state-owned funds] means Face++ will receive much more policy support from the government, which will greatly benefit their development,” said Leng Biao, professor of body recognition at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

“來自‘國家隊’(國有基金)的投資意味著Face++將會獲得政府更多的政策支持，這將對他們的發(fā)展大有助益，”北京航空航天大學(xué)(Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics)從事人體識別研究的教授冷彪表示。

“But there are risks too, because national-team funding comes with restrictions on who can invest in them in future.”

“但也存在風(fēng)險，因為國家資金注入帶有對未來投資者身份的限制。”

Face++ is pioneering technologies that are used by mobile payments company Ant Financial, which is trialling its software to let customers pay with scanning their face. It is talking to banks about the use of its software in their branches.

Face++是移動支付公司螞蟻金服使用的一系列技術(shù)的開拓者，目前該公司正在測試一種能夠讓顧客通過面部掃描完成支付的軟件。目前Face++正與多家銀行討論將這一軟件應(yīng)用到他們的分行。

Last week, the Chinese start-up beat teams from Google, Facebook and Microsoft in tests of image recognition at the International Conference on Computer Vision in Italy, the industry’s major worldwide gathering.

上周，在意大利舉行的業(yè)界主要全球會議——國際計算機視覺大會(International Conference on Computer Vision)上，這家中國初創(chuàng)公司在圖像識別測試中打敗了谷歌(Google)、Facebook和微軟(Microsoft)的團(tuán)隊。

But Face++ also is helping China’s police automatically track the country’s 1.3bn citizens and identify them in surveillance footage. “We want to build the eyes and brain of the city, to help police analyse vehicles and people to an extent beyond what is humanly possible,” the company said.

但Face++也在幫助中國警方自動追蹤中國的13億公民，并在監(jiān)控視頻中識別出他們。“我們希望建立城市的眼睛和大腦，超出人為可能地幫助警方分析車輛和人員，”該公司表示。

The use of AI allows police to trace a target across multiple cameras in different locations. The government aims to be able to predict crimes before they happen by analysing patterns of movement.

運用人工智能(AI)能讓警方通過不同位置的多個攝像頭追蹤同一個目標(biāo)。政府力求有能力通過分析活動規(guī)律來預(yù)測犯罪行為。

“Every prefecture’s municipal police department [of which China has 294] has invested at least Rmb100m each into their facial-recognition surveillance systems,” Mr Leng added.

“每個地級市公安機關(guān)(中國有294個地級市)都至少對面部識別監(jiān)控系統(tǒng)投資1億元人民幣，”冷彪補充道。

Unlike fingerprinting or retinal scans, facial recognition software can analyse targets without their knowledge.

與指紋或者視網(wǎng)膜掃描不同，面部識別軟件能夠在目標(biāo)不知情的情況下分析他們。

Since AI technologies require data to learn from, Face++ benefits from training its algorithms on China’s vast pool of cheaply available data — and from more relaxed privacy laws on the mainland.

由于人工智能技術(shù)需要通過數(shù)據(jù)來學(xué)習(xí)，F(xiàn)ace++受益于能夠利用中國海量廉價數(shù)據(jù)來訓(xùn)練其算法，還受益于中國內(nèi)地更寬松的隱私法律。

Its software can recognise people without them having given the company any information, since it links up to China’s national photo identification database of more than 1bn records — the largest in the world.

其軟件能夠識別出沒有向該公司提供任何信息的人，因為其連接到擁有超過10億條記錄的中國國家照片識別數(shù)據(jù)庫——后者是世界同類數(shù)據(jù)庫中最大的。

Face++ opened its first overseas lab in Seattle in July, and poached Wang Jue, a principal scientist at Adobe, to head it. The company says it hopes to expand globally in future.

Face++今年7月在西雅圖建立了首個海外研究院，并從Adobe挖走首席科學(xué)家王玨來領(lǐng)導(dǎo)這個研究院。該公司表示，希望未來能在全球擴張。

Additional reporting by Yingzhi Yang Yingzhi Yang補充報道