Hikvision boosts Hangzhou's security

Automatic algorithms allow timely analysis and efficient response

Security data technology is helping Hangzhou become a safer and more intelligent city, said a top executive of Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co Ltd, a video surveillance product supplier in China that has provided security solutions to major international events in China and overseas.

"Security data and cloud computing technologies will enable automatic capturing and analysis of the images in CCTV surveillance, which will make security information more accurate and efficient," said Zheng Yibo, vice-president of the company.

Hikvision, in which the State and private investors have stakes, made digital video recorders when it was created in 2001. It has grown into a company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that covers more than 100 countries and regions in the world with 21 branches overseas. It provided security solutions for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the APEC Summit in 2014, the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, and this year's Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

"The biggest challenge in CCTV surveillance is to select valuable information from myriads of data, to which SDT is the key solution. This technology is still at the beginning stage," said Xie Linghua, senior engineer of Hikvision.

According to Xie, high quality pictures and timely information transfer are the key to CCTV surveillance. At the moment, a large number of CCTV devices are maintained by human labor. Once the system breaks down or encounters some technical problems, it cannot be fixed in a timely manner.

"Maintenance costs are high while effectiveness is compromised. Therefore, an intelligent CCTV monitoring system is the future trend in the industry. Intelligent surveillance is able to use automatic algorithms to analyze the images. It is able to capture the motion of the object in a scene, and able to draw a conclusion as to what that motion means. It saves a lot of human labor and boosts the outcome," said Xie.

Hikvision introduced a DT camera last year, which is able to identify temperature, humidity, smoke and position in addition to conventional information of image, sounds and alarms. Meanwhile, it is able to turn the information of non-human face images, such as car plates, into structured data.

Hikvision has 17,000 employees, among which more than 7,000 are researchers. The input in R&D every year accounts for more than 8 percent of the company's revenue.

According to the statistics of Shenzhen-based China Public Security Technology Co Ltd, the total output of China's security industry was 498 billion yuan ($74.6 billion) last year. CCTV surveillance product output accounted for two-thirds of the security industry.

Chen Zongnian, chairman of Hikvision, said that globalization is the company's next step. "The World Internet Conference, which is held in Zhejiang every year, the G20 Summit and the Asian Games to be held in Hangzhou this year have put Hangzhou in the spotlight. It means a lot of opportunities for Hikvision to promote its international recognition. Our overseas revenue is less than 30 percent of the total revenue. It will increase year by year," said Chen.