America's Attacks on SenseTime is Part of Its War Against Chinese AI

On Monday Chinese Artificial intelligence and facial recognition firm SenseTime was forced to postpone its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in Hong Kong after it was on Friday added to a U.S government blacklist which bans Americans from investing in the firm or buying securities from it. The blacklisting would have rocked confidence in the IPO and lost it money, forcing it to tactically retreat until the dust settles. As the firm does most of its business in China, the loss of the United States is not expected to cause significant disruption, and it may seek to double down by seeking a second listing in the STAR market some point. However, it is important to understand why the United States is targeting such a firm, of which was first added to the commerce department entity list in 2019 alongside a host of other companies. That being, as a Chinese Company in the field of Artificial intelligence, it is operating in a domain which the US has grew to consider as a critical and strategic field of technology which it sees as intrinsic to its own geopolitical competition it is waging against China.