HK to become leading innovation hub: Paul Chan

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po envisions Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area (GBA) becoming a leading global hub for finance and innovation, surpassing the Bay Areas of San Francisco and New York.

Chan outlined the city’s ambition as he delivered a speech at the 2025 Technology for Change Asia forum on Wednesday.

The finance chief highlighted the government’s substantial investments and the formulation of a comprehensive strategy in innovation and technology, saying: “We are scaling the tech ecosystem in Hong Kong from upstream to downstream.”

He also emphasized the complementary strengths of Hong Kong and its GBA sister cities, pointing to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s ranking, which put the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou science and technology cluster at the world’s number two in innovation.

He added Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis project will support the synergized development of the SAR and the GBA, which will be the home to many strategic tech companies.

“Hong Kong's value for tech is clear: together with the GBA, we will emerge as a leading international financial and innovation centre, more than combining the advantages of both the San Francisco Bay Area and the New York Bay Area.”

Regarding artificial intelligence, the finance chief sees the emerging technology as rapidly reshaping production, business and consumption models while empowering the upgrading of traditional industries and creating new ones.

Chan also highlighted China’s strengths in AI, saying they are not demonstrated not only by large language models like DeepSeek, but also by other inventions and applications, such as self-driving cars and embodied AI.

(Jamie Liu)