Shanghai, July 10, 2020 – SenseTime, the world-leading artificial intelligence (AI) company, hosted an industry forum themed, “AI+: Innovate for a Better Tomorrow” onsite and online at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2020 today. Prominent scholars and industry leaders from all over the world attended the forum to share their views and vision on how AI technology is empowering various industries to transform and create a better future. Co-founder and CEO of SenseTime, Xu Li, also announced a strategic upgrade of its open source framework, OpenMMLab, during the forum.

OpenMMLab was established in 2018 by the Multimedia Lab (MMLab), a joint laboratory between SenseTime and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, aiming to promote academic exchange and improve reproducibility of algorithms. Over the past two years, the popularity of OpenMMLab has grown among AI researchers as many algorithms and AI toolboxes on this platform are made freely available. It is expected that after the upgrade, the platform will be able to grant public access to over one hundred algorithms and 600 pre-trained models that cover over ten research directions.  

“Technology should not be limited to serving the head only but must be focused on solving the many under-represented problems that can emerge under the long tail,” said Xu Li at his keynote speech. “AI-driven innovations have undoubtedly played an important role in addressing issues across various industries. But now it is up to us to realize the problems in our daily lives and find solutions to them, so that technology can transform and improve our lives for the better.”

Another highlight of the forum was a panel discussion on AI and eSports. Zhou Hang, an 8-time championship of StarCraft II in China, now working as a researcher at SenseTime, shared his insights on the influence of AI on eSports. A panel of highly talented researchers and champions of eSports and Jiangsu TV’s Super Brain gathered to discuss various topics including the similarities and differences between the human brain and machine in decision-making, and the critical role of decision making in machine learning. 

Guest speakers and presenters attending the conference virtually this year, can make use of SenseTime’s “AI Background Assistance” tool. It is essentially a real-time image segmentation solution that automatically segments a speaker’s image from his or her background, and replaces the background with key images to unify the video played or projects speakers as holograms.  To enrich the conference experience for both physical and virtual attendees, guest speakers such as Jack Ma, Stephen Schwarzman, Christin Klein and Cristiano Amon, attending the conference virtually appeared on stage as a hologram.

SenseTime also deployed its Digital Human technology at the WAIC 2020 conference hall. Integrating computer vision and natural language processing technologies, the digital human guide interacts and takes the visitors through a tour to introduce the achievements of AI-enabled solutions in various industries.

Distinguished guest speakers from academia, industry and government agencies shared their views virtually, including Eric Grimson, Chancellor for Academic Advancement at MIT; Takeo Kanade, U. A. and Helen Whitaker University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Member of National Academy of Engineering; Chen Jie, Academician, Chinese Academy of Engineering, President of Tongji University. Delivering a remark at the forum, H.E. Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence of the UAE, addressed the importance of developing AI responsibly to ensure that all generations will benefit from the decision made today. Meanwhile, Kiren Kumar, Executive Vice President of the Singapore Economic Development Board and Assistant Chief Executive of Info-comm Media Development Authority, also emphasized the ethical and responsible use of AI, so that the technology can be trusted and beneficial to the society.

商湯科技攜手全球創新領袖  共同探索人工智能未來

【2020 年7月10日·上海】全球領先的人工智能（AI）公司商湯科技SenseTime在2020世界人工智能大會上舉辦了《大愛無疆•致遠》人工智能企業論壇。 來自國內外各領域的頂級學者及行業領袖在論壇上分享人工智能何以賦能各行各業，創造美好未來。商湯科技聯合創始人、首席執行官徐立亦在論壇上正式宣佈OpenMMLab的戰略升級。

OpenMMLab是香港中文大學-商湯科技聯合實驗室（MMLab）於2018年啟動的開源計劃，旨在提高學術界演算法的可復現能力以及推動行業學術交流。過去兩年中，OpenMMLab陸續開放多個開源算法庫和工具箱，並獲得越來越多AI研究人員的使用和回饋。戰略升級後的OpenMMLab人工智能演算法開放體系預計將涉及超過10種研究方向，覆蓋100多個演算法和600多個預訓練模型。

在商湯科技CEO主題演講中，徐立表示：「AI真正落地不僅要解決頭部問題，還要解決長尾裡的細小問題。人工智能的潮流已經毋庸置疑，而真正發現問題，克服困難，解決人們生活中的點滴問題，才是技術真正進入人們生活的標誌。」

《從電競到AI》圓桌對話為論壇中的另一亮點。曾獲8次《星際爭霸II》冠軍的中國頂尖電競選手、現任商湯科技研究員周航分享了AI對電競的影響。AI專家、電競高手和江蘇衛視《最強大腦》的冠軍選手共聚一堂進行一場精彩絕倫的圓桌對話，共同探討決策性型AI與人腦間的異同與種種關係。

為提供線上及線下觀眾最佳參會體驗，商湯科技為大會主辦方提供了「AI背景助手」解決方案。該方案能自動檢測影片中的人物及背景，將其分離成不同圖層予以替換，以便統一背景或以全息投影方式，將人物投射在舞台上，帶給觀眾最真實立體的感受。聯合國數字合作高級別小組聯合主席馬雲，黑石集團創始人、董事長兼CEO蘇世民（Stephen Schwarzman），SAP全球總裁柯睿安（Christian Klein）和高通總裁安蒙（Cristiano Amon）等未能親臨現場的嘉賓，皆以全息影像的方式虛擬出鏡，發表了精彩絕倫的演講。

在今年的世界人工智能大會上，商湯科技的數字人技術也在展廳中亮相。商湯數字人結合計算機視覺和自然語言處理技術，與參觀者進行即時互動，猶如真人嚮導般為參觀者介紹人工智能技術在不同領域的應用與落地。

來自學界、業界及政界的重要嘉賓也通過雲參會的方式，發表了各自對人工智能未來的觀點。美國麻省理工學院名譽校長Eric Grimson，美國卡內基•梅隆大學講席教授、美國工程院院士Takeo Kanade及中國工程院院士、同濟大學校長陳杰等嘉賓紛紛為大會錄製了演講視頻。阿聯酋人工智能部長H.E. Omar Sultan Al Olama特地為論壇發來祝賀，也闡述為確保每一代人可以從今天的決策中收益，故因以負責任的態度發展AI。新加坡經濟發展局執行副總裁兼新加坡資訊通信媒體發展局副局長Kiren Kumar在演講中強調，人工智能應採用負責任的態度並遵從倫理道德的原則予以使用，這一技術才能夠真正受信於民、惠及社會。