Lianhe Zaobao signs MOU with AI company SenseTime

SPH Media’s flagship Chinese-language daily, Lianhe Zaobao (ZB) will use Hong Kong-based SenseTime International's (SenseTime) artificial intelligence (AI) technology to enhance its visual content and provide its audiences with a more immersive reading experience.

The year-long memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by the two entities will also see the two entities organise AI-related knowledge-sharing activities for ZB’s audiences and partners.

Given its long history of publication, ZB’s photograph archive, dating back from the 1920s, is a rich source of material in the documentation of Singapore's visual heritage.

ZB said SenseTime’s “super resolution” AI technology will save image processing time for its photojournalists for pictures that accompany daily news reports.

SPH Media’s Chinese Media Group Editor-in-Chief, Lee Huay Leng, said amid evolving media trends, AI-enabled technologies enhance visual content, and “shapes new ways of delivering essential news content to audiences”.

The collaboration will complement the media group’s 100th anniversary celebration, added Lee.

Both parties will jointly organise public seminars to raise “awareness” of AI technology. There will also be “AI Bootcamps” for ZB’s Student Correspondents’ Club members.

Apart from using SenseTime's augmented and mixed reality (AR/MR) imaging technologies to animate static photos and comics to boost the reading experience, ZB will also be experimenting with using the technology at physical events as well.

SenseTime’s CEO, Xu Li said that there was a huge potential to transform the media landscape through the use of AI and the company hoped to co-lead the charge in the region, along with Lianhe Zaobao.