Yicai Global) June 15 -- SenseTime Group, a leading Chinese developer of artificial intelligence software, has unveiled a USD3,999 (USD559) AI-powered robot that can play Chinese board game Go.

SenseRobot uses robotic arms to play Go against people on a real board, Yicai Global learned at yesterday's launch event in Shanghai. It has several difficulty levels to meet different needs, from beginners to professionals.

In 2016, Google's AI lab DeepMind developed AlphaGo, a Go computer program that defeated world champion Lee Sedol, becoming a hot topic in the field of science and technology. But AlphaGo was only a prototype, not accessible to ordinary families.

SenseRobot managed to integrate huge computing power into a very small hardware, Shen Hui, dean of SenseTime's Innovative Engineering Institute, told Yicai Global.

Last August, SenseTime introduced the first generation of SenseRobot that can play Chinese chess. Compared with the previous generation, the newest Go robot optimized its algorithm and computing power that can be reinforced by the cloud server in games against professionals, Shen noted.

The advent of large language models has helped a lot in product iterations, and chatbot capabilities have been widely used in developing SenseRobot to improve its research and development performance and efficiency, Shen added.

After ChatGPT went viral, Chinese tech giants, including Baidu and Alibaba Group Holding, have launched similar products. In April, SenseTime released LLM SenseChat and SenseNova, an AI model training system.

SenseTime's shares [HK: 0020] were trading down 0.4 percent at HKD2.25 (29 US cents) as of 11.25 a.m. today. They have plunged nearly 41 percent since their listing in December 2021.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione