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In the eyes of He Bofei, the next epoch in new technology following the world-changing Internet will be artificial intelligence, when computers understand the world more like humans and offer even greater assistance.
It's also China's chance to catch up with and surpass developed countries, said He, co-founder and CEO of Deepglint Information Technology Co Ltd.
Founded in 2013, Deepglint is a tech company specializing in computer vision and artificial intelligence. Its current products focus on intelligent security monitoring.
The graduate of Stanford University said Zhongguancun has several advantages that attracted him and his partner Zhao Yong, now chief technology officer of the company.
Beijing is home to a large number of headquarters of internationally famous venture capital companies.
The city also has the best universities and research institutes in China, which continuously supply Zhongguancun startups with talents.
What's more, the local government has strong support policies for startups, including special funding.
He recalled that when they were starting their business, local government authorities often came to do research and asked about their needs.
"From these details, I felt that the Chinese government is transforming into a service-focused government and they showed great respect for startups," he said.
When his company decided to venture into researching security monitoring and related businesses, He saw both opportunities and challenges.
He said China's security monitoring market reached a value of 400 billion yuan ($65.6 billion) in 2013, 80 billion yuan more than the smartphone industry. What's more, there is still great potential for future growth.
Common monitoring systems place a heavy dependence on observers who have to look at a number of screens and can easily get tired and stressed, especially in public places such as airports.
So He's company developed an automated monitoring system that can make judgments based on real-time scenes, and can discover, or even predict, irregular events such as violence and accidents.
It's believed to be the first successful business application of computer vision and artificial intelligence globally.
Their technology has impressed many professionals in the industry, including the chief technical officer of Honeywell Security Group, a global company in security monitoring.
He attributed last year's rapid growth in the company to advantageous technologies, the good general environment for innovation and entrepreneurship, and most importantly, its talent.
One of its employees, Chen Xinyi, 21, is a graduate from Princeton University and was the first Chinese to win the "20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship", which funds each fellow with $100,000 to encourage them to leave college temporarily to do meaningful and creative things.
