A total of HK$1 billion will be earmarked to set up an Artificial Intelligence (AI) research and development institute, Hong Kong’s finance chief has announced.
The government’s Digital Policy Office, established last July under the Innovation, Technology and Industry Bureau, will be in charge of setting up the Hong Kong AI Research and Development Institute, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said during his 2025-26 budget speech on Wednesday.
It is part of the government’s push to develop AI as a “core industry” and to use it to help traditional sectors upgrade and transform, Chan said.
In the previous budget, Chan allocated HK$3 billion to set up a three-year AI Subsidy Scheme to help eligible users – ranging from government departments to research and devlopment (R&D) centres and AI start-ups – to access the Artificial Intelligence Supercomputing Centre in Cyberport.
Chan said on Wednesday that the government had approved five projects run by local universities and research institutions since the AI subsidy scheme was launched in October.
The scheme helped accelerate local R&D work linked to big language models, new materials, and large synthetic biology models, he added.
On Tuesday, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun Dong said more than 70 government departments had started to use a locally developed generative AI tool known as “HKGAI V1.”
Powered by China’s AI bot DeepSeek, the AI tool was developed by a research team led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).
It was first rolled out in early 2024, and various government departments began using it in the middle of last year – which helped train the AI tool, Sun said.
The minister said the tool would soon be available for public use, adding he hoped that it would also be available for millions of overseas Chinese in the future.
“In this wave of technology exemplified by artificial intelligence, I am happy to tell you that Hong Kong is not absent,” Sun said in Mandarin. “Hong Kong scientists are great.”
