Remark Holdings, the often-overlooked AI company, just might be sitting on a gold mine. While the market gushes over the latest large language model (LLM) developments, Remark has quietly been building a powerful computer vision-focused AI platform, and their recent moves suggest they're about to unleash its potential on a massive scale.

The key takeaway from their Q1 2024 earnings call wasn't just the promising partnerships – it was a seemingly innocuous detail buried in CEO Kai-Shing Tao's comments about a potential security contract for migrant centers. He laid out a scenario, almost offhandedly, that reveals the staggering revenue potential of their platform in a market segment ripe for disruption.

Tao described Remark's typical security solution package, encompassing six AI features like violence detection, facial recognition, and weapons detection, priced at $100 per feature. He then extrapolated this to a hypothetical scenario with 100 migrant centers, each equipped with 100 cameras, resulting in a potential $72 million in annual revenue from this single contract alone.

This seemingly off-the-cuff calculation might be the most significant insight into Remark's future prospects. It highlights their strategic shift away from the turbulent Chinese market towards a vast domestic security market hungry for AI solutions. And while the $72 million figure is hypothetical, it's grounded in real-world pricing and deployment scenarios, suggesting that it's not just a pipe dream but a tangible possibility.

To understand the sheer scale of this opportunity, consider that there are approximately 100 million domestic security cameras currently in operation. Tao estimates that the majority of these cameras are not yet equipped with AI analytics, representing a potential $360 billion addressable market – a figure that dwarfs Remark's current market cap of just over $6 million.

This disparity, coupled with their recent partnership with Microsoft and a soon-to-be-announced collaboration with another Fortune 500 company, suggests that Remark is poised for exponential growth. They've secured the backing of tech giants who recognize the power of their platform and are ready to leverage their vast sales networks to bring it to a wider audience.

Even more compelling is Remark's focus on "multimodal models as a service." While generative AI and LLMs are grabbing headlines, Remark's emphasis on computer vision and the integration of various input types – text, images, audio – positions them at the forefront of a more versatile and practical AI landscape.

They're applying this multimodal approach to diverse industries like construction and aviation, developing solutions that go beyond generating digital content and directly address real-world challenges with tangible benefits. Their Smart Construction platform, for example, can autonomously monitor worker safety, hazard risks, and construction progress through video streams, potentially revolutionizing the industry.

Remark's track record may be somewhat turbulent, marked by a heavy reliance on the Chinese market. But their recent pivot, coupled with these new partnerships and a growing pipeline of potential contracts, suggests a dramatic shift in their trajectory.

While the market chases the hype of LLMs, Remark could be quietly building a computer vision-powered AI empire, and their recent earnings call might have just offered a glimpse into its future dominance.

Hypothetical Revenue Projection

Based on the potential migrant center contract and the estimated total addressable market, we can project Remark's potential revenue growth:

"Fun Fact"

Remark Holdings owns KanKan, a popular Chinese social media platform, further showcasing their versatility and potential for expansion across different technological landscapes.