Shanghai’s reopening after a two-month-long citywide lockdown is expected to create huge demand for digital devices that check and track individuals’ temperature, vaccination status, recent movements, and most recent PCR test, generating sales worth CNY50 billion, analysts said. As many as two million such “digital sentry” machines could be deployed in public venues such as hospitals, shopping centers, office buildings and entertainment venues in the coming weeks, according to brokerage Everbright Securities. Most digital sentry machines have been developed and are manufactured by SenseTime, China’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) firm, as well as Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology and Zhejiang Dahua Technology, the country’s biggest surveillance camera makers.
“The real market demand could largely beat Everbright Securities' estimate, given the size of China’s huge market,” said Cao Hua, Partner at private-equity firm Unity Asset Management. “If the devices are proven to be highly effective in helping Shanghai guard against the Omicron variant, they could be seen everywhere in the country’s most congested cities.” Many venues in Shanghai are expected to post digital sentries at entrances to abide by the rules of Shanghai’s digital health-code system to avoid punishment. “Anti-pandemic curbs can bring a windfall to China’s hi-tech firms, particularly AI technology developers,” said Wang Feng, Chairman of Shanghai-based financial services group Ye Lang Capital. “The market potential here cannot be matched anywhere else in the world, because these smart devices will be widely used in big cities to meet stringent virus control rules. Operators of shopping malls and cinemas will buy the machines to improve the efficiency of their verification process, hence attracting more clients.”
Most digital sentry machines use facial recognition technology to check and record information about individuals’ vaccinations, Covid-19 tests and their recent movements before allowing access to public venues. They are priced between CNY2,000 and CNY10,000 per unit, Everbright Securities said. SenseTime would not reveal its sales targets for the digital sentry device Thunder-Air, but said that it took the company only two weeks to launch the product in March. “The device has six functions – mask detection, temperature screening, health code verification, vaccination record query, nucleic acid report query and ID verification,” SenseTime told the South China Morning Post.
