Four students from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have been honored as Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest skilled group in laptop science. ACM has named 71 new Fellows globally this yr, and among the many 12 Fellows based mostly in Asia, 4 are from HKUST.
HKUST’s honourees embody Prof. Tim Kwang-Ting CHENG, Vice-President for Research and Development, Chair Professor of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering and Department of Computer Science and Engineering; Prof. Jiaya JIA, Chair Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Director of the Von Neumann Institute; Prof. Ke YI, Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering; and Prof. Hui XIONG, Associate Vice-President (Knowledge Transfer) and Chair Professor of the Thrust of Artificial Intelligence at HKUST (Guangzhou).
Their excellent contributions embody developments in automation design and software-hardware co-design of digital circuits and computing programs; improvements in laptop imaginative and prescient by means of segmentation, scene parsing and texture evaluation; vital contributions to the speculation and apply of database question processing; in addition to developments in AI and cellular computing.
Prof. Tim Cheng is a number one authority in digital design automation and software-hardware co-design for computing chips and programs. He has in depth expertise in fostering cross-disciplinary analysis collaborations and has additionally made vital contributions to laptop imaginative and prescient and medical picture evaluation. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences, and the School of Engineering on the University of Tokyo. His impactful work has earned him quite a few accolades, together with the ACM SIGDA Pioneering Achievement Award, the China Computer Federation Award for Overseas Outstanding Contribution, the Pan Wen Yuan Foundation Award for Outstanding Research, and over a dozen finest paper awards at main conferences and journals. Additionally, he has efficiently translated a number of of his innovations into industrial merchandise.
Prof. Cheng is deeply honored to be elected as an ACM Fellow. He said, “This recognition is a testament to my team’s efforts in electronic design automation and software-hardware co-design of electronic circuits and computing systems over the years. We will continue to promote interdisciplinary research collaborations and advance the development of electronic design automation and software-hardware co-design for AI computing chips. “
Prof. Jiaya Jia is an professional in laptop imaginative and prescient, language, and deep studying, and is an IEEE Fellow. His analysis pursuits span picture and video reasoning, VLMs, multi-modal AI, and generative strategies. His papers have been cited over 100,000 instances on Google Scholar, with an H-index exceeding 120. Prof. Jia has obtained quite a few awards, together with the SIGGRAPH Asia Test-of-Time Award in 2023 and 2024, in addition to the NPAR Best Paper Award in 2012. He has been named among the many world’s prime 2% most-cited scientists by Stanford University for a number of years. Prof. Jia can be the founding father of SmartMore, a unicorn specializing in advancing world Industry 4.0 by means of clever applied sciences, merchandise, and options.
Prof. Jia said, “This honour will inspire us to continue our efforts in applying computer vision and deep learning to real-world scenarios. I sincerely appreciate the unwavering support we have received from HKUST and our partners over the years. We will continue to drive innovation, inject new momentum into the development of artificial intelligence (AI), and make contributions to society.”
Prof. Ke Yi is a distinguished scholar in knowledge administration and theoretical laptop science, with analysis spanning database idea and programs, question processing, knowledge safety and privateness, parallel and distributed algorithms, and knowledge streams. His work emphasizes the interdependence between idea and apply in designing efficient, sensible algorithms. Prof. Yi has revealed roughly 160 papers in worldwide conferences and journals, incomes quite a few accolades all through his profession. These embody two SIGMOD Best Paper Awards, 4 SIGMOD Research Highlight Awards, a PODS Test-of-Time Award, a SIGMOD Best Demonstration Award, and a Google Faculty Research Award. He additionally served as this system chair for Symposium on Principles of Database Systems (PODS) 2026 and International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT) 2021 and has been the chair of the SIGMOD Research Highlight Committee since 2025.
Prof. Yi expressed his gratitude to ACM for the popularity and emphasised, “My team has always been dedicated to creating algorithms that are both theoretically robust and practically impactful. Moving forward, we aim to explore these areas even further, contributing to the advancement and prosperity of computer science.”
Prof. Hui Xiong is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, the China Computer Federation, and IEEE, in addition to an ACM Distinguished Scientist. Focusing on AI and knowledge mining, Prof. Xiong led quite a few initiatives underneath the National Key R&D Program of China of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. His scholarly work has garnered over 62,000 citations on Google Scholar, with an H-index of 101. He has obtained a number of prestigious awards, together with the ACM SIGKDD Service Award and the AAAI Best Paper Award. Additionally, Prof. Xiong serves because the Deputy Director of the Big Data Expert Committee of the China Computer Federation, is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Nature npj AI and has chaired main business conferences similar to KDD and ICDM a number of instances.
Prof. Xiong remarked, “ACM is a globally esteemed academic institution in computer science, with a highly competitive selection process for Fellows. I am deeply honored to receive this important recognition. We will remain dedicated to pioneering advancements in AI and data mining and to contributing innovative ideas to the academic community.”
Established in 1993, the ACM Fellows Program represents the group’s most esteemed membership class. It honors the highest 1% of ACM members who’ve made distinctive contributions to the sphere of laptop science by means of their improvements. This yr, 71 new Fellows from 14 nations had been chosen. The 2025 ACM Fellows will likely be formally acknowledged throughout an awards banquet on June 13, 2026, in San Francisco.