Even as China Cracks Down on Tech, AI Companies Plan IPOs

Last November, the Chinese government ordered Ant Group, a business spun out of Alibaba that operates the ubiquitous Alipay mobile payments platform and other financial services, to cancel its hotly anticipated IPO at the last moment. Shortly after ride-hailing giant DiDi went ahead with an IPO in New York this summer despite government concerns, officials removed the company's app from Chinese app stores and ordered it to comply with an extensive cybersecurity review. Soon after, ByteDance, operator of wildly popular news and entertainment apps, as well as the short-video sensation TikTok outside of China, shelved its own plans for an IPO to comply with tighter government rules around data protection and security. So it's a little odd that two titans of China's artificial intelligence industry, SenseTime and Megvii, are proceeding with plans for IPOs seemingly unbothered, with listings on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges, respectively. After a decade of unchecked growth, many Chinese tech firms now face a stark new reality, with canceled IPOs, stricter regulations, and hefty fines.