Maize Technology: After fingerprint and face recognition, it's the third major biometric technology. How can it break through the overseas market monopolized by giants?
In the movie "Transformers: Age of Extinction", the CEO of the KSI Group lightly touches the console with his palm. A beam of invisible light reads the vein pattern in his palm, successfully unlocking the company's core secret, the "Transformer Element". This futuristic scene is no longer a science - fiction fantasy today but is based on the commercially available palm vein recognition technology. As the third major biometric technology after fingerprint and face recognition, palm vein recognition has moved from the silver screen to reality.
Maize Technology, a palm vein recognition technology service provider from Guangzhou, is a key player in this field. This technology - innovation enterprise, established in 2021, relies on the Biometric Recognition and Intelligent Sensing Laboratory of South China University of Technology to provide high - security and high - accuracy palm vein recognition algorithms and products for fields such as smart access control and identity authentication.
Zeng Xiangyu, the founder of Maize Technology, and Dong Yanjie, the CTO, are responsible for market expansion and hardware R & D respectively. Kang Wenxiong, the head of the laboratory and a professor at South China University of Technology, serves as the company's chief scientist. In the early days, the team focused mainly on algorithm optimization and product refinement. After years of accumulation, they have built a moat in the core technology field of palm vein recognition. Now, as market demand gradually awakens, the company has shifted its focus to project implementation. While promoting large - scale applications in industries such as public security, finance, and the military in China, it is also looking towards the broader overseas market.
Schematic diagram of Maize Technology's products
1. Palm Vein: The Mainstream Route of the Next - Generation Biometric Technology?
In the post - credit scene of "Ne Zha 2", the big villain, the Immortal Wuliang, cannot pass through the face recognition system of the secret chamber because his face is swollen and deformed from being beaten. He has to ask his disciple to repeatedly hit his face to "restore his original appearance" before he can pass. Although this scene is a dramatized treatment in the movie, it does hit the pain point of face recognition, which "relies on surface features and is easily affected by physical deformation".
The rapid popularization of face recognition has reshaped the daily scenarios of identity verification. However, as the application deepens, its inherent technical shortcomings have gradually emerged. In addition, face recognition often triggers extensive privacy disputes. Facial information may be collected and stored without the user's knowledge, facing the risk of leakage.
Similarly, fingerprint recognition, which has also been widely used, also has problems that are difficult to avoid. Fingerprint wear caused by long - term labor and fingerprint traces left in daily contact can be replicated and exploited. Its security and stability are difficult to meet the requirements of high - security scenarios.
In contrast, the palm vein recognition technology uses 850 - nanometer near - infrared invisible light to irradiate the palm. Therefore, even when the palm's epidermis is injured or contaminated, it can still accurately capture the subcutaneous vein pattern. "The performance of palm vein recognition is more balanced, achieving a good balance in uniqueness, security, stability, compliance, and convenience," Zeng Xiangyu explained.
This biological feature hidden beneath the body surface has three advantages. First, it has built - in live detection ability. Only a live palm with blood flowing can form an image, and non - living or forged carriers cannot complete the recognition. Second, it has extremely high anti - counterfeiting performance. The vein pattern is unique and stable for life. It will not wear out like fingerprints and cannot leave replicable traces through daily contact. Third, it provides better privacy protection and is not as sensitive as facial information.
Although palm vein recognition has the above advantages, its popularity was far lower than that of face and fingerprint recognition before. The core problem lies in the lack of hardware ecosystem support.
Specifically, face recognition is based on visible light imaging, and a camera can meet its hardware requirements. Smart terminals such as mobile phones are already equipped with cameras, providing a natural implementation scenario for rapid commercialization. Face recognition is also the best scenario for the early large - scale implementation of artificial intelligence algorithms, so it has received huge capital investment.
Zeng Xiangyu said that palm vein recognition requires a near - infrared light source. Currently, there is a lack of smart terminals equipped with this function on the market. Its input and recognition have higher requirements for hardware. Palm vein recognition technology companies not only need to overcome the algorithm but also provide compatible hardware. The commercialization chain is longer, resulting in far less capital investment in the market than in face recognition. There are only a few research teams focusing on this field globally.
In recent years, the significant decline in R & D costs and the changes in the application scenario environment of biometric recognition have created favorable conditions for the development of palm vein recognition.
Similar to face recognition, palm vein recognition relies on AI algorithms for feature extraction and comparison. Early products had high requirements for chip performance, resulting in high costs. Currently, through algorithm optimization, Maize Technology has achieved the technical advantage of "not being picky about chips" and can be compatible with general - purpose chips that are readily available on the market, thus significantly reducing hardware costs. "The cost of our terminal products has decreased by more than half compared to the early stage of self - research. Now, the price is comparable to that of face recognition devices," Zeng Xiangyu revealed.
On June 1, 2025, the "Regulations on the Safe Application and Management of Face Recognition" officially came into effect, clearly stipulating that face recognition technology should not be used in places such as changing rooms and hotel interiors. At the same time, users who do not agree to face recognition verification must have other reasonable verification methods. Against this background, some scenarios such as stadiums, swimming pools, and enterprise changing rooms have also begun to seek other compliant and convenient solutions, objectively promoting the development of the palm vein recognition industry.
2. Break through in the Overseas Market with High - Cost - Performance Products
It is reported that Maize Technology has launched more than a dozen hardware products, covering multiple product lines such as collection modules, access control and attendance all - in - one machines, and payment machines. At the same time, it has also launched cloud platform functions such as small - program access control management, enterprise attendance, and Web - based management software.
Although Maize Technology has made some arrangements in fields such as the military, finance, and public security in China, the project cycle is long, and the inventory of access control products accumulated during the epidemic needs to be digested. Against the background of relatively low domestic market demand, at the end of 2024, Maize Technology turned its attention to the overseas market.
The research results of the overseas market have shown great opportunities to Maize Technology's team. On the one hand, the early market education by Japanese and South Korean enterprises has made overseas customers have a certain understanding of palm vein technology. International giants such as Fujitsu and Hitachi in Japan have been deploying palm vein recognition for many years. They launched relevant products as early as 2004 and have built a mature business layout and formed large - scale application advantages through early technology accumulation and extensive scenario implementation. On the other hand, overseas customers attach more importance to privacy and security, which is in line with the core advantages of palm vein technology.
Compared with the products of Fujitsu and Hitachi, Maize Technology's products perform better in terms of technical performance. Zeng Xiangyu said, "Although Japanese enterprises launched relevant products as early as 2004, limited by traditional pattern recognition technology, the product iteration speed is slow. However, Maize Technology's AI algorithm has achieved a breakthrough in technical performance."
The price advantage is also the competitiveness of Chinese companies such as Maize Technology. The price of Maize Technology's products is only one - third of that of Fujitsu's similar products. Therefore, many overseas agents who originally represented Fujitsu and Hitachi have actively turned to cooperate with Maize Technology.
Maize Technology's sales logic is not simply selling hardware but a cooperation model centered on technology output. "We do not sell a standardized product that customers can use directly out of the box. Instead, we provide full - link technical support from algorithms, modules to complete machines and systems," Zeng Xiangyu explained. This model requires customers to have a certain ability for secondary development, and the company's overseas expansion path has been adjusted several times as a result.
Initially, the team tried to expand the overseas market through foreign trade merchants in Guangzhou. However, they soon found that foreign trade merchants had limited knowledge of the technology and could not respond to customers' technical inquiries, resulting in slow progress in cooperation. Therefore, the company shifted its target customers to domestic overall solution providers with overseas business and cooperated with them by leveraging their channel resources in overseas security, fintech, and other fields. Zeng Xiangyu also admitted that the project cycle of this kind of cooperation is long, and the tracking cycle of some government projects can even be more than a year.
Therefore, Maize Technology also focuses on exhibitions as the key customer - acquisition channel, combined with short - video marketing and third - party e - commerce platforms, to attract customers to visit the company on their own initiative. Through direct communication with customers, they can intuitively understand the core advantages of the products and promote the conclusion of cooperation.
Zeng Xiangyu found that customers interested in Maize Technology's palm vein recognition products mainly include: biometric solution providers who hope to enrich their product lines through palm vein technology; original agents who are attracted by the significant cost - performance of Maize Technology's products and have switched from representing international brands such as Fujitsu to cooperate with Maize Technology; system integrators who undertake government projects and need high - quality products to support project implementation; and fintech companies or third - party payment service providers who are concerned about the application prospects of palm vein payment.
Currently, Maize Technology's overseas customers cover multiple regions such as East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and South America. Among them, East Asia and Southeast Asia are the core markets, which benefits from the early market education by Japanese and Korean enterprises. "Customers in these regions have a certain understanding of palm vein technology and are more willing to cooperate," Zeng Xiangyu introduced. Currently, the number of customers in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, South Asia such as India and Indonesia, as well as South Africa, Brazil and other places is also continuously increasing.
3. Leverage the Incremental Market with Technological Advantages
Maize Technology's core future technological direction is to further strengthen the performance advantage of 1:N recognition. 1:1 verification aims to confirm that "the person is who they claim to be" and is usually used to assist in proving a known identity. For example, when handling business, users can use face or palm scanning to verify the information on their ID cards. In contrast, 1:N recognition aims to confirm "who you are". Without the user pre - indicating their identity, the system directly compares the user's biological features with the entire feature database to accurately locate the individual's identity in a large amount of data.
Currently, overseas palm vein manufacturers still provide the 1:1 verification mode. Maize Technology's products can already achieve efficient 1:N recognition, supporting large - scale feature database comparisons of 1:10,000 or even 1:100,000, which is also the key for Maize Technology to attract overseas customers.
Taking advantage of the algorithm's recognition advantage in the 1:N direction, Maize Technology will focus on the commercial field in the future and create a composite application model of "one - palm pass". "The future trend is scene integration. A single scene often has multiple needs such as access control, payment, and intelligent cabinet authorization at the same time," Zeng Xiangyu took the stadium as an example. Users only need to enter their palm vein information once to complete multiple operations such as entering the stadium through access control, unlocking the locker, and paying for drinks, achieving "one - palm handling".
With the core advantages of live detection, high anti - counterfeiting performance, and privacy protection, the demand for palm vein recognition in fields such as security and finance is also becoming increasingly prominent. Currently, these fields are also the core areas for Maize Technology's technology implementation.
Facing the layout of other domestic technology giants in the field of palm vein payment, Maize Technology said that it will not compete directly with large enterprises. "Large enterprises focus on large - scale commercial payment scenarios, which is not our strength," Zeng Xiangyu said. Maize Technology positions itself as a technology output provider and does not plan to directly target end - consumers. Instead, it aims to empower B - end customers and indirectly serve software providers, operators, and other customers in the industry through palm vein technology. At the same time, Maize Technology will continue to focus on technology R & D and module authorization and deepen cooperation with various solution providers.
With the in - depth development of the digital economy, the application boundary of palm vein recognition technology is also continuously expanding. Zeng Xiangyu introduced that some enterprises have begun to explore its potential in emerging fields such as the Web3 ecosystem and digital identity authentication. By leveraging the in - vivo feature attributes of palm veins, which are "unforgeable and stable for life", it can provide more secure underlying support for scenarios such as identity confirmation in the virtual space and on - chain interaction.
(Authors: Feng Yaling, Yang Yuexin)