SenseTime's SenseFoundry platform undergoes a comprehensive upgrade to build the next-generation urban intelligent foundation | Frontline Report

Author | Huang Nan

Editor | Yuan Silai

On December 9th, at the 2025 SenseTime AI Forum held at the Hong Kong Science Park, SenseTime officially announced the comprehensive upgrade path for its flagship platform, "SenseTime Ark."

Currently, visual AI has become the core driving force for the intelligent upgrade of smart cities and industries. However, the traditional algorithm production method of visual AI highly depends on professional algorithm experts and generally faces three major pain points: long R & D cycles, high costs, and high entry barriers. With the continuous emergence of long - tail scenarios, the traditional algorithm model struggles to meet the needs of large - scale applications.

Piao Yuankui, the senior director of SenseTime's Smart City and Business Group, pointed out that the arrival of the large - model era is accelerating the reconstruction of the industry paradigm. Algorithm design is no longer solely reliant on experts but is open to on - site engineers. Model applications are also shifting from "customized development" to "intelligent production." The industry urgently needs a brand - new visual AI production model to enable model capabilities to adapt to business more quickly and be deployed more efficiently.

To this end, SenseTime has launched an upgraded version of the visual AI 2.0 "SenseTime Ark" and built a new - generation visual algorithm production model around two major systems: "general - specialized integration" and "intelligent training closed - loop."

At the level of "general - specialized" model orchestration, Ark achieves progressive reasoning for long - tail visual tasks through the multi - level collaboration of lightweight small models and general large models. This not only ensures recognition accuracy but also significantly reduces computing power consumption. In terms of the "intelligent training" system, Ark takes Agentic Training as the core and forms a full - process closed - loop around data intelligent construction, model training, evaluation, and deployment. This enables end - to - end automation in visual model production from image collection to business decision - making, allowing front - line engineers to quickly build usable visual models.

SenseTime's new - generation visual algorithm production model

Meanwhile, the Ark platform is building a visual intelligent agent platform that integrates "perception - decision - behavior." It connects the visual understanding of the digital world with the embodied actions in the physical world, supports collaborative perception and decision - making among heterogeneous terminals such as drones, robotic dogs, and driverless cars, and promotes the intelligent upgrade of inspection and patrol scenarios towards air - ground integration.

Based on the capabilities of multi - modal large models, SenseTime Ark SenseFoundry can efficiently schedule various types of visual models and construct a closed - loop workflow that runs through scenario perception, data processing, and intelligent decision - making. Its core advantage lies in breaking through the capability boundaries of traditional visual AI. It can not only "see" but also "understand, think, and make decisions," promoting the transformation of urban governance from "passive response" to "active prediction."

This technological breakthrough has also accelerated the process of industrial intelligence. In the government affairs field, SenseTime has built the "Kunming Artificial Intelligence Empowerment Center Construction and Operation Integration Project" based on AIGC technology and traditional computer vision technology. It is committed to constructing a comprehensive and multi - level urban - level artificial intelligence service system, covering artificial intelligence infrastructure services, artificial intelligence basic common application support services, and typical intelligent application service scenarios.

In the transportation field, SenseTime has collaborated with multiple partners to promote the implementation of contactless subway passage. It is currently the only subway AI product in the world that has achieved large - scale engineering implementation and stable operation. In cities with a population of tens of millions, this product can support concurrent requests from tens of thousands of terminals, ensuring passage efficiency with a false recognition rate of one in a million and an algorithm comparison speed of less than 200ms. As of July this year, SenseTime's "contactless passage" has covered more than ten megacities, over 700 subway stations, and 15,514 passages, with a market share approaching 70%.

In the cultural and tourism field, SenseTime has jointly built an AI intelligent passenger flow center and an AR + AI navigation platform with the East Hall of the Shanghai Museum, covering tens of thousands of square meters of public space in the museum. This is an effective verification of the management and service value of the "AR + AI" integration model in cultural venues.

In addition to the core market in the Chinese mainland, the technological capabilities and platform system of SenseTime Ark are also continuously expanding in the Hong Kong, Macao, and overseas markets.

In the Hong Kong and Macao markets, as the construction of smart cities in Hong Kong accelerates, urban governance scenarios have put forward more systematic requirements for visual AI. Feng Yu, the general manager of SenseTime's Hong Kong and Macao business, said that Ark's new platform - based, model - based, and intelligent - agent - based system meets the needs of the Hong Kong and Macao markets from "analysis to insight and from insight to decision - making."

Since entering the Asia - Pacific market in 2019, SenseTime has served nearly 500 international customers in total. The cooperation enthusiasm in the overseas market has continued to rise this year. In Shanghai alone, the number of overseas customer visits and business exchanges has skyrocketed, with the number of visitors increasing five - fold year - on - year.

As the core carrier for technology implementation, SenseTime Ark has currently achieved large - scale applications in multiple key scenarios such as urban safety, transportation, manufacturing, drone patrol, and embodied intelligence, serving nearly 200 cities at home and abroad.