Editorial | Hong Kong is poised to catch the global AI wave

In the first wave of the internet and e-commerce, Hong Kong was slow to adopt the new technology. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the city is faring much better this time. No doubt mainland China’s emergence as a global tech superpower has a lot to do with it as it gives both direction and incentive for local officials, universities and firms on how to deploy their ample capital resources, research capabilities and scientific talent. The sudden appearance of DeepSeek, with its ingenious “less is more” approach, has also served as an inspiration to the nation.

Top-tier researchers, both local and those from the mainland, have helped push our universities to the forefront of innovation, along with government support. That has translated into our high university rankings in data science and AI. This year’s QS World University Rankings placed the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the top 20.

Even Cyberport, long looked upon as glorified real estate, is finally fulfilling its original mandate. Its AI Supercomputing Centre – which only began operations in December – is a cornerstone of the government’s strategy to foster a local AI ecosystem and has already achieved more than 90 per cent utilisation.

Speaking at the China Conference 2025 organised by the South China Morning Post earlier this week, Alibaba’s AI specialist Huang Fei said the technology was progressing rapidly from limited reasoning and problem-solving capabilities to agency in understanding users’ problems and tasks, and helping to resolve them. Alibaba owns this newspaper.