CloudWalk Technology Co. Ltd. is a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...

developer of

facial recognition Facial recognition or face recognition may refer to: * Face detection, often a step done before facial recognition * Face perception, the process by which the human brain understands and interprets the face * Pareidolia, which involves, in part, se ...

software. The company has been sanctioned by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

government for allegedly participating in major human rights abuses against

Uyghurs The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...

History

CloudWalk was founded by Zhou Xi, a graduate of the

University of Science and Technology of China A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which rou ...

with an academic background in

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

and

pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of patterns and regularities in data. It has applications in statistical data analysis, signal processing, image analysis, information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, computer graphic ...

. CloudWalk was founded in April 2015, following Zhou's departure from the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Repub ...

. In 2017, CloudWalk raised $379 million in

Series B A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the ...

funding from investors including

Shunwei Capital Shunwei Capital () is a Beijing-based venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging c ...

, Oriza Holdings, and Puhua Capital.

Role in mass surveillance of the Uyghurs

On May 22, 2020, the

United States Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busi ...

added CloudWalk Technology to its

Entity List The Entity List is a trade restriction list published by the United States Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), consisting of certain foreign persons, entities, or governments. Entities on the Entity List are subject to U ...

for its role in aiding the Chinese government in the mass surveillance of the Uyghur population. CloudWalk Technology partnered with the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ...

to develop the surveillance technology. According to U.S officials, CloudWalk Technology was, "complicit in human rights violations and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR)". In December 2021, the

United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

prohibited all U.S. investment in Cloudwalk Technology, accusing the company of complicity in aiding the

Uyghur genocide The Chinese government has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang that is often characterized as genocide. Since 2014, the Chinese government, under t ...

. In October 2022, the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...

added CloudWalk to a list of "Chinese military companies" operating in the U.S.

Customers

CloudWalk is the primary supplier of facial recognition technology to the

Bank of China The Bank of China (BOC; ) is a Chinese majority state-owned commercial bank headquartered in Beijing and the fourth largest bank in the world. The Bank of China was founded in 1912 by the Republican government as China's central bank, repl ...

and

Haitong Securities Haitong Securities is a securities firm in China, providing services in stocks and futures brokerage, as well as investment banking, corporate finance, M&A, asset management, mutual fund, and private equity. Haitong was listed on the Shanghai ...

. In 2018, CloudWalk signed a deal to provide the government of

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

with a mass facial recognition system, which will monitor all major transportation hubs, as well as create a national facial ID database.

References

{{reflist Software companies of China 2015 establishments in China Facial recognition software Chinese brands Defence companies of China