Hong Kong’s AI ambitions take shape with 90% of supercomputing capacity now in use

Hong Kong’s ambition to create an artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem is bearing fruit, with more than 90 per cent of the city’s flagship supercomputing centre at Cyberport now in use, according to officials.

The AI Supercomputing Centre, which began operations in December, is a cornerstone of the government’s strategy to foster a vibrant local AI ecosystem. Authorities have earmarked HK$3 billion (US$418.6 million) in subsidies to support AI model development and applications.

Cyberport said on Friday that it had received 20 applications for the subsidy programme, with 10 projects approved so far. Among the recipients is the Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Centre, which is developing a foundational audio model and a ChatGPT-style tool used by more than 70 per cent of government departments. The centre has also launched a multilingual transcription tool capable of detecting Cantonese, Mandarin and English.

The government is seeking to boost computing resources for start-ups as part of its ambition to transform Hong Kong into a leading technology hub, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun Dong said in June. Plans are under way for a new supercomputing centre at Sandy Ridge in the Northern Metropolis – a government project to transform a large swathe of land in the New Territories into an economic hub.

At the Cyberport event, Yang Hongxia, one of China’s top AI scientists and head of computing at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said access to the centre’s resources helped her project achieve breakthroughs in medical applications.

“By collaborating with the top cancer treatment hospitals in Hong Kong and mainland China, we have enhanced data analysis and localised applications in the specialised field of cancer treatment based on vertical large models and specialised models,” Yang said.

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