Chinese tech startup SenseTime Co is headquartered in Beijing's Zhongguancun Science Park. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Ministry of Science and Technology announced on Sept 20 that SenseTime will build the National Open Innovation Platform for Next Generation Artificial Intelligence on Intelligent Vision.

Headquartered in Zhongguancun Haidian Science Park, the Chinese image recognition startup is the fifth company to shoulder the responsibility. Previous participants include Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent and the voice recognition specialist iFlytek.

The licence was granted by Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang who visited SenseTime's Hong Kong headquarters on Sept 21.

SenseTime will be a leading force in building a new innovation hub in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and promote the globalization of cutting-edge technologies.

Following in the footsteps of tech giants like Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, SenseTime is growing into a unicorn in the computer vision sector.

On Sept 10, SoftBank China invested $1 billion in SenseTime and raised the company's valuation to $6 billion. Now a national innovation platform, the company is expected to see more valuation surges in the future.

SenseTime's license from China's Ministry of Science and Technology [Photo/zgcgw.beijing.gov.cn]