Supercomputing center nears debut

Staff reporter

John Lee Ka-chiu hopes for closer collaboration among the government and the innovative industry, academia, research and investment sectors, to build a comprehensive IT ecosystem in the city.

Alongside a 1,800-square-meter AI educational base to be opened at Cyberport next year, the city's tech hub will also see an Artificial Intelligence supercomputing center to be gradually put into service from year-end.

Lee said on social media that he had visited the new AI supercomputing center and an AI laboratory at Cyberport together with Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun Dong on Friday.

The center's first phase, set for completion by year-end, will provide computing power of around 300 petaflops - quadrillion floating-point operations per second - which will increase to around 3,000 petaflops next year and will be able to finish handling 10 billion pictures within an hour.

"This will provide strong support for the pressing need for computing power in Hong Kong [innovative] industry and will drive scientific research breakthroughs," Lee said.

"Meanwhile, the Cyberport AI Lab showcased a range of AI solutions, services and products for enterprises to test and experience and to promote related research and development and collaboration."

Additionally, phase two of the center is set to be completed between next year and 2026.

Lee emphasized the importance of industry efforts in promoting the development of innovative industry.

"I am happy to see that enterprises are setting up an AI educational base in Hong Kong to offer professional and technical training to local university students," he said.

"The educational base will offer courses covering AI foundation theories, applications, talks hosted by top [AI] professionals and academics, as well as field trips to the mainland. These can allow more young people to get to know about AI, cultivate their interests, and in turn train up professional talents."

Meanwhile, Lee cited the International Institute for Management Development's latest World Digital Competitiveness Ranking, which showed Hong Kong's ranking moved up three places to seventh globally.

He said it shows Hong Kong remains one of the most digitally competitive economies in the world.

"AI has been an important driver of a new round of industrial transformation and in digital economy development. Hong Kong must seize the opportunity to further enhance its competitiveness and innovative capacity," the CE said.

He urged industries across the SAR to give full play to their creativity and promote the application of AI and digital intelligence via the city's thriving AI ecosystem.