Tribute paid to late AI visionary Tang Xiao’ou by China’s Premier Li Qiang and other top officials
- Li Qiang, Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang among Chinese leaders paying respects to the leading facial recognition expert and SenseTime co-founder, who died on Friday
- Unusually high-profile list of mourners signals the importance Beijing places on the nation’s tech leaders and innovators
Chinese Premier Li Qiang was among the top Chinese leaders who paid tribute at a memorial on Tuesday to Tang Xiao’ou, a leading expert on facial recognition, and the mastermind behind the US-sanctioned artificial intelligence giant SenseTime.
The ceremony for Tang, who died on Friday from an undisclosed illness at the age of 55, featured an unusually high-profile list of mourners for a private citizen in China.
The ceremony was held at Shanghai’s Longhua Funeral Home on Tuesday morning, according to a video from Shanghai-based Dragon TV.
Tributes were also paid by retired policymakers, including China’s former vice-premier Liu He, who was Chinese President Xi Jinping’s top economic aide until he retired in March, as well as Li Lanqing, who served from 1993 to 2003 as vice-premier and then executive vice-premier, and Yu Zhengsheng, China’s top political adviser from 2013 to 2018.