Hong Kong’s main applied-research physique highlighted the necessity to discover varied artificial-intelligence applied sciences and superior supplies in a method that aligns with business wants.
Huang Ying, chief know-how officer of the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI), shared these insights in a current interview with China Daily.
ASTRI additionally outlined detailed benefits and implementation methods for integrating these applied sciences with native industries, supported by numerous sensible case research for reference.
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One of its key goals is to reinforce Hong Kong’s strengths in changing self-developed improvements into industrial options, Huang mentioned.
Huang mentioned that Hong Kong’s analysis ecosystem has a outstanding report of producing high-quality scientific information. However, vital potential exists to unlock larger industrial worth from these improvements.
According to Huang, this problem stems from the city’s rising high-tech industrial chain — significantly in areas like semiconductors and superior manufacturing — which presents room for progress. Strengthening partnerships with industrial stakeholders able to scaling native improvements might be key to seizing this chance.
To foster a greater stability, he’s encouraging Hong Kong scientists to include industrial concerns a lot earlier within the analysis course of, significantly in the course of the venture design part. He instructed that public analysis funding our bodies, together with ASTRI, emphasize the significance of creating options tailor-made to the wants of “real customers”. By aligning analysis initiatives with clear business ache factors, Hong Kong can higher translate into impactful real-world purposes, he mentioned.
Turning to the know-how switch part, Huang mentioned that the “government-backed, local pilots” mode is likely one of the best mechanisms for testing and iteratively fine-tuning merchandise earlier than their official industrial launch.
He mentioned that with confirmed know-how, groups should proactively leverage Hong Kong’s distinctive geopolitical and financial vantage level – its connectivity linking the native, Chinese mainland and international markets – to learn the way completely different areas function and the way that know-how could be tailored accordingly to suit a broader spectrum of real-world circumstances throughout completely different cultural and regulatory landscapes.
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Hong Kong’s superconnector credentials are on full show, Huang mentioned, citing the three-day LEAP East 2026 know-how truthful – which begins on Wednesday – as the newest proof of the city’s bridging energy and an important alternative for native companies and researchers to familiarize themselves with exterior market wants and to provoke worldwide partnerships.
Held on the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, LEAP East marks the first growth of the globally acknowledged know-how platform originating from the Middle East into the Asia-Pacific area.
ASTRI took its applied sciences to the exhibition flooring as properly, displaying a lineup of superior options throughout renewable power, clever mobility, sustainable development and inexperienced innovation.
Huang mentioned ASTRI got here to the LEAP platform not solely to be seen, however to domesticate stronger connections with Middle Eastern markets and their analysis communities, to get a “precise, firsthand” understanding of how high-tech improvements are at present being tailored to fulfill the industrial ache factors dealing with economies within the areas.
He mentioned that on the opening day of the exhibition, ASTRI held productive talks with a number of Middle Eastern-based analysis our bodies – and has gained reaffirmation that, amongst others, AI, info and communications know-how, inexperienced and low-carbon options, plus battery and superior power storage supplies are compelling areas that talk on to Middle Eastern market demand.
He attributed this convergence crucially to a broader context, as many Middle Eastern nations are actually navigating a high-stakes bid to scale back their reliance on oil and fuel revenues, diversify their economies, and make sustainability targets part of their future progress.
Huang added that Hong Kong – bolstered by sturdy native research-and-development capabilities, globally aligned authorized and business requirements programs, and prepared entry to the mainland – has been uniquely positioned to forge a “value-added, two-way flow”.
He mentioned the thought is to make mainland improvements journey outward by means of the city, worldwide experience circulation inward, and Hong Kong’s homegrown applied sciences add worth to each, yielding built-in merchandise constructed for a world whose wants outstrip what anyone place can provide.
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