HKUST students among first to trial HK homegrown AI chatbot

Students and staff at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) can now access the city’s own ChatGPT-style artificial intelligence chatbot, for free, as its pilot trial expands beyond civil servants.

Students and faculty members can use HKGAI V1, Hong Kong’s homegrown AI large language model on the university’s one-stop GenAI Platform, along with 10 other models such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek and the image generation tool DALL-E.

The university said HKGAI V1 will help provide a broader range of AI-powered learning resources to students, including reasoning companions, reflection aids, and analytical tools. 

The locally developed chatbot will also enhance education by facilitating classroom discussions, fostering deeper reasoning, and serving as a collaborative tool, the school added.

HKUST provost Guo Yike said HKGAI V1, which is tailored for Hong Kong’s cultural landscape, will provide new learning and teaching resources that resonate with the local context.

“We believe this will better meet the needs of our faculty and students as they explore innovative pedagogical approaches and engage in collaborative research.”

Additionally, HKUST will provide training support for faculty members to deepen their understanding of these new tools.

Developed by a joint-university venture led by HKUST, HKGAI V1 is tailored for Hong Kong’s cultural landscape, supporting Cantonese, Putonghua, and English, and the first to utilize full parameter fine-tuning of DeepSeek.

Previously exclusive to civil servants for pilot use, HKUST now becomes the first local university to test-use HKGAI V1.

(Jamie Liu)