(Yicai) Dec. 18 -- Shares of SenseTime Group plunged after the Chinese artificial intelligence company said its co-founder and largest shareholder Tang Xiaoou has died.

SenseTime [HKG: 0020] closed 11.1 percent lower at HKD1.12 (14 US cents) a share in Hong Kong, after tumbling by as much as 18.3 percent earlier today.

Tang, 55, died of an unspecified illness on Dec. 15, SenseTime announced the following day. He held a 20.6 percent stake in the Shanghai-based company, making him its biggest shareholder, followed by Alibaba Group Holding with 10.8 percent. 

Recognized as one of his most significant achievements, Tang founded SenseTime, one of China's top four AI startups, in 2014. He has served as the firm's executive director since 2021.

The differential voting right of Tang's 6.9 billion Class A shares, which have a market valuation of HKD7.7 billion (USD986 million), has been terminated following his death, SenseTime said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The expected conversion ratio of his shares is one-to-one into Class B shares, it added.

Born in Anshan, Liaoning province, Tang obtained a doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 and later became a professor in the information engineering department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a scholar at the faculty of engineering.

SenseTime's revenue rose 1.6 percent to CNY1.4 billion (USD196.4 million) in the six months ended June 30 from a year earlier, while its net loss shrank 2 percent to CNY3.1 billion, the firm's first-half financial report showed on Aug. 28. Income from the large language model and AI-generated content segment skyrocketed 670 percent, contributing 20 percent to the total, up from 10.4 percent. 

Editor: Martin Kadiev